Read original article and see more pictures at The Phnom Penh Post.
Om Roeun (aka Lucky), a Cambodian returnee, smokes a cigarette at his home in Phnom Penh in August. Rick Valenzuela
By Diana Montaño
Tuesday, 03 January 2012
Sam Bath isn’t sure exactly where he’s from. All his mother told him is that he was born “somewhere near the Thai border” before the family fled Cambodia and resettled in the United States as refugees in 1986.
Now, the 37-year-old slouches in a plastic chair in the office of the Returnee Integration Support Centre in Phnom Penh, a city he had never set foot in until two US immigration agents escorted him off a commercial airliner on December 2 and handed him over to Cambodian authorities.
“My mind, my heart is over there,” he says of Fresno, California, the city he grew up in, and where all his closest relatives, including two adolescent sons, live.
After being granted asylum from the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and living most of his life in the US, Sam Bath was deported to a homeland he barely knows, amidst an unprecedented immigration crackdown in the US last year.
In October, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) reported that 396,906 individuals were removed from the US during Fiscal Year 2011 – the highest number in the agency’s history.
Sam Bath is one of 87 individuals repatriated to Cambodia, according to the US Embassy. While it’s a tiny portion of all US deportations, it is a more than fourfold increase from 2010, when only 21 people were repatriated, according to RISC. Last year marked the highest number since the US started deporting Cambodians after the Repatriation Agreement was signed in 2002.
For the last month, Sam Bath has been living in limbo at the temporary shelter operated by RISC, the only local NGO dedicated to assisting returnees. He’s unsure of what to do or where to go, and unable to make any moves.
“Right now I’m just waiting for my paperwork. I need an ID, I need my family book,” he says, referring to the Cambodian government-issued document in which individuals are registered as members of a family as proof of residence. Without the “family book” he can’t apply for ID, and without ID, he can’t buy something as simple as a SIM card, let alone apply for a job, rent a flat, or open a bank account. But like most refugees whose communities were shattered by the violence they escaped, Sam Bath has no family to speak of.
“My mum tried to look for some sisters, but she doesn’t know where they are, [or] if they’re still alive,” he says.
Since no relative could sign for his release at immigration, RISC staff “sponsored” him. Once released, they offered him shelter at their office, and are now helping him with his paperwork.
He has no idea how long it will take, but is grateful to have a roof over his head.
If not for RISC, “I don’t know where I would have gone. I’d probably be out there”, he says, pointing to the street.
The drastic surge in repatriations this year, however, has begun to strain the already meagre support system for returnees in Cambodia.
“There is much more need this year,” says Kao Sarith, senior case manager at RISC, which opened in 2002 as the Returnee Assistance Program. Its goal was to ease returnees’ transition to an unfamiliar country and culture by providing shelter, food, and orientation.
Immigration authorities notify RISC staff when a returnee is scheduled to arrive so that they can do a needs assessment. Kao Sarith says that in past years, three to six people would arrive in one month, sometimes fewer. Last month there were 12.
Deportable refugees
Sean McIntosh, a public affairs officer for the US Embassy here, is hesitant to attribute the spike in repatriations to an increase in arrests or deportations. Rather, he says, it is “a reflection of having an ICE representative in Cambodia with a permanent presence”, something which has allowed for “better processing of ICE cases” in recent years.
But advocates in the US familiar with the issue of Cambodian deportations are quick to point to a shift in enforcement strategy on the part of the Obama administration as the cause. “I think it has to do with the [2012 presidential] campaign,” says Jacqueline Dan, staff attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Centre in Los Angeles.
Dan says that amidst escalating criticism from immigrant rights groups in the US regarding heightened deportations, the Obama Administration has expressly shifted its priorities to removing individuals with criminal records, as revealed in an ICE memo leaked last June. This move aimed to appease critics while at the same time positioning the administration to look tough on immigration enforcement, she explains.
The shift has had a significant impact on deportable Cambodian refugees, says Dan. Khmer youths are more susceptible to getting into trouble with the law and falling into the category of a deportable “criminal alien”, she explains. “First you have the Khmer Rouge targeting basically anyone that they think is educated. That wipes out a huge percentage of people who might successfully adjust to life in the United States.”
On top of that, she says, most refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge did so after witnessing, and living through, atrocities. “A lot of them came to the US and were traumatised ... but were not provided services that they really needed.”
Tuesday, 03 January 2012
Sam Bath isn’t sure exactly where he’s from. All his mother told him is that he was born “somewhere near the Thai border” before the family fled Cambodia and resettled in the United States as refugees in 1986.
Now, the 37-year-old slouches in a plastic chair in the office of the Returnee Integration Support Centre in Phnom Penh, a city he had never set foot in until two US immigration agents escorted him off a commercial airliner on December 2 and handed him over to Cambodian authorities.
“My mind, my heart is over there,” he says of Fresno, California, the city he grew up in, and where all his closest relatives, including two adolescent sons, live.
After being granted asylum from the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and living most of his life in the US, Sam Bath was deported to a homeland he barely knows, amidst an unprecedented immigration crackdown in the US last year.
In October, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) reported that 396,906 individuals were removed from the US during Fiscal Year 2011 – the highest number in the agency’s history.
Sam Bath is one of 87 individuals repatriated to Cambodia, according to the US Embassy. While it’s a tiny portion of all US deportations, it is a more than fourfold increase from 2010, when only 21 people were repatriated, according to RISC. Last year marked the highest number since the US started deporting Cambodians after the Repatriation Agreement was signed in 2002.
For the last month, Sam Bath has been living in limbo at the temporary shelter operated by RISC, the only local NGO dedicated to assisting returnees. He’s unsure of what to do or where to go, and unable to make any moves.
“Right now I’m just waiting for my paperwork. I need an ID, I need my family book,” he says, referring to the Cambodian government-issued document in which individuals are registered as members of a family as proof of residence. Without the “family book” he can’t apply for ID, and without ID, he can’t buy something as simple as a SIM card, let alone apply for a job, rent a flat, or open a bank account. But like most refugees whose communities were shattered by the violence they escaped, Sam Bath has no family to speak of.
“My mum tried to look for some sisters, but she doesn’t know where they are, [or] if they’re still alive,” he says.
Since no relative could sign for his release at immigration, RISC staff “sponsored” him. Once released, they offered him shelter at their office, and are now helping him with his paperwork.
He has no idea how long it will take, but is grateful to have a roof over his head.
If not for RISC, “I don’t know where I would have gone. I’d probably be out there”, he says, pointing to the street.
The drastic surge in repatriations this year, however, has begun to strain the already meagre support system for returnees in Cambodia.
“There is much more need this year,” says Kao Sarith, senior case manager at RISC, which opened in 2002 as the Returnee Assistance Program. Its goal was to ease returnees’ transition to an unfamiliar country and culture by providing shelter, food, and orientation.
Immigration authorities notify RISC staff when a returnee is scheduled to arrive so that they can do a needs assessment. Kao Sarith says that in past years, three to six people would arrive in one month, sometimes fewer. Last month there were 12.
Deportable refugees
Sean McIntosh, a public affairs officer for the US Embassy here, is hesitant to attribute the spike in repatriations to an increase in arrests or deportations. Rather, he says, it is “a reflection of having an ICE representative in Cambodia with a permanent presence”, something which has allowed for “better processing of ICE cases” in recent years.
But advocates in the US familiar with the issue of Cambodian deportations are quick to point to a shift in enforcement strategy on the part of the Obama administration as the cause. “I think it has to do with the [2012 presidential] campaign,” says Jacqueline Dan, staff attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Centre in Los Angeles.
Dan says that amidst escalating criticism from immigrant rights groups in the US regarding heightened deportations, the Obama Administration has expressly shifted its priorities to removing individuals with criminal records, as revealed in an ICE memo leaked last June. This move aimed to appease critics while at the same time positioning the administration to look tough on immigration enforcement, she explains.
The shift has had a significant impact on deportable Cambodian refugees, says Dan. Khmer youths are more susceptible to getting into trouble with the law and falling into the category of a deportable “criminal alien”, she explains. “First you have the Khmer Rouge targeting basically anyone that they think is educated. That wipes out a huge percentage of people who might successfully adjust to life in the United States.”
On top of that, she says, most refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge did so after witnessing, and living through, atrocities. “A lot of them came to the US and were traumatised ... but were not provided services that they really needed.”
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