BURLINGTON — With tears in her eyes, 22-year-old Jassyran Kim grabbed the microphone from Boston organizer Kevin Lam and spoke out Thursday morning in front of the U.S. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
Her father, Saray Im — a 44-year-old Cambodian man who previously served three years of prison time for gun charges in the late 1990s — was one of 10 Massachusetts residents recently called by ICE to report to the Burlington Office and potentially be detained.
Thursday, she feared, may be the last time she sees her father: a man who escaped the Khmer Rouge genocide in his homeland, raised a family in Lynn, worked at Excelitas Technologies and became a local coach.
It is the second time in six months Im had been notified by ICE, Kim said.
“Thank you for being here,” Kim told a crowd of about 50 with tears streaming down her face. “Our family couldn’t do this alone.”
A sign right in front of Kim read, “Don’t deport my parents.”
Kim, a student at Davidson College, said she fears her father’s detainment could financially ruin their family. She, along with her mother, would potentially have to start part-time work to support their family — which includes five children.
“He is not a man that deserves to be deported. (No one) deserves to be deported … He’s a man who has done his time and showed he can be a better person,” said Kim, who added that Im does not have family in Cambodia.
“I’m here for a week and then I leave on Sunday to go back to my very privileged college when nobody else has to think about this,” she added, in tears. “I go back to a place where this disappears for me. It becomes not my problem anymore because I’m not here. Nobody around me is going through the same thing. I look around and nobody can sympathize with me and feel like I have a support system.”
Thursday saw more than 50 people stand outside the New England ICE office with signs brought and made by the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association — speaking out and chanting for the halt of the deportations of Cambodians, Muslims and people of color.
Five of the 10 refugees who received notices for deportation live in Lowell, the city with the nation’s second-largest Cambodian community. Over 98,000 Southeast Asian Americans live in Massachusetts.
“Family is important to everyone,” said Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell Executive Director Sovanna Pouv. “Community is everything and that community can keep going as long as people are heard.”
Pouv said late Thursday that Saray Im was ultimately released by ICE and doesn’t have to report back for another year.
Cambodian deportations have been happening since about 2002, when Cambodia agreed to begin repatriating refugees convicted of felony crimes in the U.S.
Immigration policies from Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama presidential administrations have continued to affect the Southeast Asian American community during the previous decades, Lam said.
But deportation statistics have risen sharply since President Donald Trump took office and imposed visa sanctions on Cambodia (and a handful of other nations, like Laos) in order to compel them to speed up the removal process.
There has been a 279% increase in Cambodian removals (29 removals in 2017 to 110 in 2018), according to a stat sheet given out by the Asian American Resource Workshop — a nonprofit in Boston that works with the Asian Pacific community — and the Asian Outreach Unit at Greater Boston Legal Services.
Another 180% increase is expected in 2019.
“I think folks are drained at this point,” Fatema Ahmad, the deputy director of the Muslim Justice League said. “This is not the first time folks have showed up. I want healing for those that show up.”
ICE’s Boston field office acting Director Marcos D. Charles said in a statement that the agency “does not target individuals for arrest or removal based on ethnicity and race.”
“ICE focuses its resources on the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who have received criminal convictions; have pending criminal charges; or are determined to be a national security or public safety threat,” said the statement, which was also provided to the Boston Herald earlier this week after an organized Boston protest. “Since January 2017, the agency no longer exempts classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to arrest, detention and removal from the United States.”
Lam said the protests and organization will continue as Thursday’s protest is “bigger than just the Cambodian community.”
“I really believe in keeping families together,” Lowell resident Fahmina Zaman said. “I am an Asian American supporting other Asian Americans.”
Luke O’Roark on Twitter: @LukeORoark
