Huy Quoc Phan and his family (via Amy Phan via USA Today)
Nothing this administration does surprises me anymore.
I mean, just absolutely nothing.
Even forgetting about what the U.S. did in Vietnam and the pact it had with Vietnamese refugees like Huy Quoc Phan:
"For decades, both the Republican and Democratic administrations protected Vietnamese refugees such as Phan from deportation, citing their specific status as war and displacement survivors. This protection was given to approximately 8,600 Vietnamese who arrived prior to 1995, when the U.S. and Vietnam normalized relations. Vietnam did not take back deportees from this group, and the Biden administration effectively ended such removals.
But President Trump's second year in office has seen a dramatic reversal. The government has redoubled efforts to deport criminal immigrants, even long-standing favorites. "With President Trump and (DHS Secretary Kristi) Noem at the helm, ICE is continuing to safeguard Americans by arresting and removing criminal aliens," replied Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security."Huy Quoc Phan served his time for the crime he committed. At 17, he rightfully spent the next 15 years behind bars for the robbery he was involved in that left a shopkeeper dead.
He did his time.
And now he spends more time, doing time in a Louisiana detention center, because the Trump administration is rolling back all the safeguards for refugees.
"We feel we got abandoned again," Quyen Mai, executive director of the Vietnamese American Organization, stated. Legal scholars and historians insist that the U.S. government committed to safeguarding refugees such as Phan, who now stand to be returned to a land they hardly know, with few resources and extreme uncertainty."
It's despicable.
But sadly not surprising for this administration.
And They're Getting Deported To...South Sudan?
In the case of Tuan Thanh Phan (pictured left), he was ready to be deported.
He knew he was going to be deported.
And he already did his time of 25 years.
But he thought it would be back to Vietnam.
Not the South Sudan.
It's inhumane (via NPR):
"Is it okay for the government then to turn around and destroy their lives and the lives of their families, just because those individuals at one time committed a crime for which they've already been convicted, they've already served their sentence?" said Matt Adams, the legal director at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, one of the groups suing the administration over the flight to South Sudan and deportations to other so-called third countries.
"It's just a complete renunciation of our justice system," he said.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American immigration Lawyers Association, said the difference from prior administrations includes the kinds of countries this White House is negotiating with.
"The principle in law is that it needs to be a safe country for that person to be removed there," said Chen, whose nonpartisan organization represents immigration attorneys and law students.
The State Department gives the South Sudan a clear "Level 4: Do Not Travel".
Really?
So while the US has fought against corruption and regimes around the world--touting itself as more humane--this is what we do now?
We can't even deport people to somewhere at least semi-decent?
We don't give them any due process even though it is court ordered?
And So They Wait
So Huy Quoc is doing more time away from his wife and children and Tuan Thanh is--well who the hell knows where he's at now?
Where is due process?
Where is humanity?
And will we ever get it back? Will other countries and communities ever look at the US the same again?
I can't say nor can I say what will happen in the end.
But I do think, at the very least, we know who the real monsters are and where they can take us, and that it's not making American great in any way shape or form.
