Celebrating One Love's One Year Anniversary, and Looking Toward the Future of Our Movement

As One Love Movement celebrates its one year anniversary, we reflect on the work that One Love Movement, SEARAC, and others have done and continue to do, fighting for community members facing deportation. There is a huge misconception among many in our communities that because we arrived as refugees and are Lawful Permanent Residents, deportation policies don’t affect us; in fact, many refugee families have been, and continue to be, torn apart by them.

One Love Movement was formed in response to the detention of several members of the Cambodian American community in Philadelphia who were later deported to Cambodia. Some like Chally Dang, who was deported earlier this year, had never even been to Cambodia – he was born in a Thai refugee camp after his parents fled the Khmer Rouge regime.

SEARAC, One Love Movement, and others have been fighting for the restoration of judicial discretion—the ability of immigration judges to weigh whether or not someone should be deported on a case by case basis, taking into consideration the individual circumstances, merits, and assets of the case. In 1996 Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and took away this ability in addition to expanding the definition of an “aggravated felony” to include a broad spectrum of offenses, some of which are neither aggravated nor felonies. Refugees who are Lawful Permanent Residents and have an “aggravated felony” conviction are subject to deportation back to the countries from which they fled. The laws were also made retroactive, meaning that even if an offense was committed years, even decades ago, even before the laws were in effect, and the individual had already served their time in a correctional facility, they would still be deportable.

Chally was deported for a one-time offense many years ago. His conviction was for aggravated assault (firing a weapon recklessly) in 1997. Chally was only 15, a minor, at the time of his conviction. He was released at age 21 after serving his sentence. Seven years later, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nine months before being deported back to Cambodia. Between the time he was released from prison and was detained by ICE, he got married, had four young children, and had never been in trouble with the law again.  

See Chally, speaking one year later, in this video presented for One Love Movement’s first anniversary.

Much more work needs to be done for people who are facing deportation and those who have been deported. There are thousands of Southeast Asian Americans who are currently facing deportation, and we need members of the community to join with us to educate friends, families, and decision-makers about the impact of deportation on our communities. Please sign up to join SEARAC’s listserv to get updates on this and other issues. Additionally, if you want to support this work, please consider donating to SEARAC and One Love Movement to continue educating our communities and working with decision makers to change these laws that are ripping apart our families who have already been through so much war and trauma.