The family of a Hmong American man facing possible deportation is asking for help from the community and policymakers to get his release.
Lue Yang, a St. Johns resident who came to the U.S. as an infant in 1979, is being held at an ICE detention facility after being arrested at work last month, his family said.
Yang’s family came as refugees from Laos after facing political violence for helping the U.S. military and C.I.A. during the Vietnam War. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand.
Yang and Ann Vue have been married more than 24 years. At a press conference Thursday, Vue said Yang’s Hmong heritage and family history will make him a target if he’s sent back.
“With Lue’s public advocacy here in America for our Hmong veterans and our Hmong American people today significantly increases that he will be identified and persecuted upon arrival. He will receive a death sentence,” Lue said.
Vue said Yang has been active in Hmong community organizations.
While he was young, however, Vue said Yang got into some trouble. He took a plea deal to serve 10 months in prison for a charge when he was a child at the advice of a court-appointed lawyer, she said.
Vue said that made him a target for deportation despite it being expunged from his record. In the 2010s, she said the family spent considerable resources trying to get him citizenship. But state level expungements don’t matter for federal records when it comes to immigration.
Vue is pleading with the governor, lawmakers, community advocates, and other Michiganders for help in her husband’s case.
“It would be a grave and irreversible injustice. To deport him now is to punish him to death over 10 months,” Vue said.
Advocates say other Hmong Americans received letters in the mail asking them to show up for an interview at Detroit’s ICE offices and were arrested then.
Asian Law Caucus attorney Aisa Villarosa said she’s not even sure agents had warrants when they detained the others.
“Because many were rapidly quietly moved from one ICE facility to the next, as many as four facilities across thousands of miles within a matter of days from Michigan to Louisiana, there are glaring due process questions about every step of their detention and processing,” Villarosa said.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on Yang’s case.
