When Saray Im received a letter in the mail saying that he would have to be detained and deported by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, he was speechless. He had received a similar notice in March 2019, when he had reported to the detention center in Burlington, and he dreaded having to relive that experience. If he was deported, he wondered, how would he help pay his family’s rent and support his wife and children?

The morning of October 3, Im and his family arrived for his appointment at the agency’s office in Burlington, surrounded by a crowd of protestors, advocates and community members. It had been a decision of theirs to make something so private go public, but Im’s wife Tammie Christopoulos said that they urgently needed the efforts of the organizers. The participants held signs, calling for Im to stay home and not be sent back to Cambodia.

“It’s like a nightmare, walking into that building,” said Im. “My thought is, when I walk in there, will I walk back out? That’s what’s going on in my head, when I go in there. I just don’t know what they’re going to say or what they’re going to do.”

With the support of community organizers like the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) and the aid of Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), Im was able to emerge free from the offices, to the joy of the crowd waiting outside. Over the past year, the two groups have worked with several Southeast Asian individuals, targeted for deportation in the most recent round of raids and have seen them reunited with their families. Im has been reporting to ICE for check-ins over the past nineteen years, due to a criminal conviction that happened in 1996. Many immigrants like Im have non-deportable offenses from decades ago, said Bethany Li, director of GBLS’ Asian Outreach Unit, and they have been unjustly called to leave the country.

Im came to the United States when he was nine years old, fleeing the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. When he was 21, he was involved in a firearms exchange, where no one was hurt, and he served three years in jail as a result. Since this time, he has led a very different kind of life, raising a family in Lynn, working in technology, and coaching a youth flag football team. Seeing the kids smile, he said, is a rewarding part of the experience.

“I took my kid to a football game, and there was no coach,” said Im. “The owner asked me, ‘Would you like to coach?’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about football, but I’ll try.’ I started YouTubing everything, so that’s how I learned. I love to watch kids play, and I watch other coaches, so I learn from it.”

Thy Chea, another individual who was targeted by ICE, was deported to Cambodia in August 2018. Originally from Cambodia, Chea spent time in a refugee camp in Thailand as a child, before moving to the United States. He fell into legal trouble in 1999, receiving convictions for assault and battery and “threat to commit a crime.” These are not deportable offenses, but Chea was nonetheless wrongfully sent away from his wife and daughter to live in Cambodia for a total of eighteen months. The officials at the detention center did not even let him sign papers.

“When I got there to Phnom Penh, the airport was kind of scary,” said Chea. “There were soldiers there with guns. They called our names, and we got off the plane, one by one. There were four minivans, and we got in the vans. …One of the guys said, ‘It’s ok. You’ll be alright. I work for the RISC Project. You can go to RISC.’ When we heard that part, everybody felt relieved. In the beginning, we were just confused, with mixed feelings. We didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Chea went to stay in a readjustment program, the Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization, formerly known as the Returnee Integration Support Center (RISC). He stayed there for three months, before he was asked to find his own apartment and live on his own.

His wife, Victoria Un, sent him money, and he communicated with her and his young daughter frequently over FaceTime. While he was away, Un gave birth to their first son.

Li from GBLS had initially fought for Chea to stay in the U.S., but by the time a judge had decided he could remain, Chea’s plane had already taken off. To have him return from Cambodia and come back home to Lowell, she began a legal battle. Chea appealed from the Immigration Judge to the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his case and get his green card status back. Li eventually filed a mandamus action, with the hope that Chea could get the travel documents he would need, which he was initially denied by the U.S. Consulate in Cambodia. When Chea was finally allowed to return to the U.S. in February 2020, he became the first deported Cambodian refugee to be readmitted to the East Coast. Arriving at Logan Airport to a cheering crowd, he met his one-year-old son for the first time.

“It was amazing to see them together at the airport,” said Li. “Watching Thy’s daughter, who remembered her dad, run toward him and seeing how happy she was, was really incredible.”

Under the Trump administration, deportations within the Cambodian community increased by 279 percent, from 2017-2018, according to ICE data. While the deportation of Southeast Asians has continued to increase under the current administration, this process has been happening for the past two decades, said Lam.

In the 1990’s, the Clinton administration passed policies that targeted Black and brown communities, funneling people from prison to deportation. Under presidents Bush and Obama, the structure and foundation of the deportation machine, which is today used by the current administration, continued to be built. Many resettling refugees, fleeing from war and genocide in their home countries, have been impacted by the U.S.’ involvement in the war in Southeast Asia and its role in imperialism and militarism, said Lam.

Lam explained that while many Southeast Asian community members targeted by ICE may have past criminal convictions, many came to the U.S. to escape violent circumstances and ended up struggling to rebuild their lives in a new country, where they faced adversity. These individuals, who were affected by policies passed in the nineties that targeted Black and brown community members, have ended up funneled into a prison-to-deportation pipeline.

“They were resettled through a refugee resettlement program into the U.S. and were placed into neighborhoods that were already facing surveillance and high levels of policing, having very little to no resources,” said Lam. “…In a lot of conversations we’ve had with community members, they are accountable to their actions they’ve taken in the past. …But for us, a person’s conviction or crime should not define who they are. What we see when we see Southeast Asian community members facing deportation is that the deportation machine and immigration system actually is dehumanizing the folks that we’re working with, seeing them as just their conviction.”

The fight has not ended, even for refugees who have made it back to their families in the U.S., Im said that he will be checking in at the ICE office in Burlington soon, and he hopes that he will be able to remain at home and resume his life.

“When they didn’t take me, it wasn’t over,” said Im. “I felt relief, to be with my family, but it’s [the possibility of deportation] still hanging over my head, because I have to report to them. It’s not over yet. I still have a case, until that’s gone, and I can breathe a sigh of relief and that cloud is gone permanently.”