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Vol. 72/No. 5      February 4, 2008

 
Seattle protest: Stop the deportation of Cambodians!
 
BY CHRIS HOEPPNER  
SEATTLE—Ninety people turned out January 7 in front of the Federal Building here to speak out against an impending U.S. government deportation of Cambodian-born immigrants. Speakers included several of those who could be deported to Cambodia if Washington signs repatriation agreements with Vietnam and Laos.

According to the Refugee Justice Project, some 2,000 Cambodian immigrants are now facing deportation, many as a result of the 1996 laws passed by the William Clinton administration. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act increased the number of offenses for which immigrants could be deported, and limited the discretion of immigration judges to waive deportation. This legislation also made retroactive the expansion of offenses classified as aggravated felonies.

“I was raised by my mother in a housing project in Seattle,” Many Uch told the demonstrators. “In 1994, as a young adult, I committed a crime that landed me in prison. Because of the immigration law passed by Congress in 1996, requiring deportable aliens to remain in detention until deported, and because Cambodia was not accepting deportees back at the time of my release from prison in 1997, I was taken into INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] custody without a release date for two and half years.

“I was paroled only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that aliens could not be detained indefinitely. However, the U.S. later signed a treaty with Cambodia allowing for deportation, which means I, along with 2,000 Cambodian Americans, could be deported at any time,” Uch said. “We demand due process. Immigrants and refugees deserve the same rights as a U.S. citizen.”

Chris Hoeppner, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor in Washington state, joined the antideportation protest. He told the crowd, “The socialist campaign demands the U.S. government stop the raids and deportations and legalize all immigrants now.”
 
 
Related articles:
Stop deportations! Legalization now!
Socialist presidential candidate tours Chicago, attends Indiana immigrant rights conference
Indiana events press fight for driver’s licenses for immigrants
Legalization of all immigrants now!
Arizona: workers protest anti-immigrant attacks  
 
 
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