Contact Your Member of Congress Now
Background Information, Talking Points, Etc.
May 8, 2002

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Background:

Recently, the U.S. Department of State announced that Cambodia will accept Cambodians who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. SEARAC calls for a hold on deportation until cases can be reviewed by the INS to ensure fairness in the deportation process. Many Southeast Asians that SEARAC has been in contact with accepted orders of removal in exchange for supervised release. Unaware that this repatriation agreement would be signed in the immediate future, many Cambodian detainees did not pursue appeals on their deportation orders. In these cases many Cambodians did not have their cases heard by a judge and thoroughly reviewed.

This international agreement has the potential to harm large numbers of Cambodians in the United States — citizens as well as people who have not become citizens yet:

• According to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) statistics, nearly 1,400 Cambodians have been issued "final orders of removal" and could be deported quickly.
• A SEARAC survey recently discovered that over half of those potential deportees are the main income-earners for their families, which typically include members who are American citizens and children.
• According to statistics from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), 145,149 refugees entered the U.S. from Cambodia between 1975 and 1999. According to INS statistics, 46,455 people from Cambodia had naturalized to become U.S. citizens. These statistics lead us to believe that nearly 100,000 Cambodians in the U.S. arrived as refugees and are not now citizens. All of them are at danger of deportation if they were convicted of a crime that makes them deportable — whether they actually committed the crime or not. These crimes can include shoplifting, marijuana possession, and driving while intoxicated.

Question and Answer:

Q: Haven't the majority of Cambodians facing repatriation already had fair evaluations of the cases?
A: No. In most cases, Cambodians were ordered deported under the 1996 immigration reform laws before the courts had ruled on the meaning of those laws. Many of these deportation orders are unlawful under later court decisions. In addition, Congress is seeking to restore fairness hearings that were eliminated under the 1996 laws No Cambodian should be repatriated while Congress is considering this legislation.

Q: What are examples of orders that are unlawful?
A: In some cases, the order is unlawful because the person was denied the right to a hearing. For example, in most cases, Cambodians facing deportation were denied a chance for a hearing before an immigration judge in which they could present the equities of their cases — including such factors as the age they came to the United States, their rehabilitation, and their lack of ties to Cambodia. The Supreme Court ruled last June that this was illegal in cases of people convicted before 1996 who served less than five years in prison. No Cambodian should be repatriated until they have had the hearings required by the Supreme Court's decision. In other cases, the order is unlawful because the INS used too harsh a rule for determining what qualifies as an "aggravated felony." For example, some courts have said that the INS was wrong to call driving under the influence an aggravated felony

Q: Isn't it too late to review these cases?
A: No. Many Cambodians were told by INS officers, lawyers or others that they would not be deported if they accepted a deportation order. As a result, the legality of their deportation orders was never tested and they never had hearings to test to fairness of deportation. No one should be deported under an unlawful order or without the hearings required under the law.

Legislation/Action Alert:

The Family Reunification Act of 2002 (H.R. 1452) would allow the Attorney General to cancel an order of removal for a legal permanent resident who poses no danger to persons or property and is not a threat to the community. The Act also allows a cancellation of removal for family unity or humanitarian reasons. Currently the bill is being reviewed by the full Judiciary committee.

Take Action:

Please call your member of Congress and urge them to:

1. Urge INS Commissioner James Ziglar to delay deportation of Cambodians until a thorough review process is in place.
2. Help pass The Family Reunification Act of 2002 (H.R. 1452) which gives the Attorney General discretion to cancel an order of removal for humanitarian and family reunification reasons.

You can find your member of Congress by going to http://clerkweb.house.gov/mbrcmtee/members/housemem.htm for members of the House of Representatives and http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm for members of the Senate. Please let TC Duong at SEARAC know if you have called or are planning on calling your member of Congress or any other advocacy on this issue. If you have further thoughts or know of anyone with an order of removal who is willing to speak out, please contact TC at 202-667-4690 or e-mail at tcduong@searac.org.

Talking Points:

• Restore fairness in the detention and deportation process. Many Southeast Asians accepted orders of removal in exchange for supervised release. Unaware that this a repatriation agreement would be signed in the immediate future, several Cambodian detainees did not pursue appeals on their deportation orders. In these cases many Cambodians did not appeal their orders of removal and have their cases heard by a judge.
• Deportees have strong ties to the United States. Many deportees have family who fought alongside U.S troops during the Vietnam War. Also, in survey of Southeast Asians in detention showed that the average age of arrival to the United States was nine years old and the average length of time that detainees have lived in this country is 20 years. One-third of the detainees SEARAC spoke with said that they had American-born children and over half said they were their families' primary source of income.
• Deportees may suffer persecution if sent back. Many detainees are victims or torture themselves or from families who suffered human rights abuses in Cambodia. Before Cambodian Americans can be deported we ask for assurances that they will be treated fairly and not be targeted by the Cambodian government.