Sophal Chuk (center), with daughters Marleena and Molly (l-r), was apprehended by ICE agents while shopping in April.
On April 13, the eve of the Cambodian New Year, Sophal Chuk was shopping for groceries at the Viet Hoa Market in Monona when U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents tracked him down, arrested him and took him to a processing center in Milwaukee and later to an immigrant detention center in Dodge County. A 67-year-old Cambodian refugee who fled the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, Sophal Chuk had been living in Madison for more than three decades. Now he’s facing deportation, and his devastated family is doing everything they can to halt the process.
“We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye or anything,” says Sophal Chuk’s daughter, Molly Bennett. “We didn’t expect any of this to happen.”
Bennett fears for her father’s health and safety while in detention — and is terrified at what might happen if he’s sent back to Cambodia. He has numerous medical problems that require treatment. “He’s used to his life here. Over there, he has nobody,” Bennett says. “Being a 67-year-old, nobody is going to hire him. He can’t work in the field, he can’t handle the weather. He’s basically going there to die.”
Sophal Chuk entered to the U.S. lawfully in 1985, but he lost his legal resident status after a 1989 conviction of sexual assault of a minor in Illinois, according to a statement from ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer. He served 10 years in prison, and a judge issued a deportation order in 2004. “Chuk was notified in 2004 that the U.S. government intended to remove him to Cambodia, per the judge’s order, and would continue to do so while the deportation order was active,” Neudauer says. “As a criminal alien with a final order of removal, Sophal Chuk will remain in ICE custody while the agency works with the government of Cambodia to obtain the necessary travel documents to carry out the judge’s 2004 order.”
Bennett says her father has served his time and has reformed his life. He’s an active member in the local Buddhist community, frequently volunteers at temple events and has done volunteer work with Freedom Inc., a local nonprofit that serves low- and no-income communities of color.
“My dad is always the first one there, he stays from beginning to end, making sure the temple is cleaned up,” Bennett says. “Everyone knows him and knows that he’s a big-hearted man.”
Sophal Chuk’s supporters says he checked in with immigration officials every six months, and they believed he was not a priority for deportation. “We thought because he was an elderly man and he had these health issues, we did not think he would be picked up,” says Kabzuag Vaj, executive director of Freedom Inc. “He had a check-in time with immigration next month, so we thought he was safe.”
Vaj, herself a refugee from Laos, says there’s been a recent surge in deportations of Cambodian refugees. Just days before Sophal Chuk’s arrest, 43 Cambodian nationals were deported from the U.S., the largest group ever sent back under a 2002 law allowing the repatriation of immigrants who have committed felony crimes and have not become U.S. citizens. In the past, Cambodia has refused to accept deportees, leading U.S. immigration authorities to deem it a “recalcitrant” nation. In response to the refusal, the U.S. State Department in 2017 stopped issuing visas to senior Cambodian ministry officials and their families.
As of December 2017, there were more than 1,900 Cambodian nationals with final orders of removal living in the U.S., including 1,441 with criminal convictions, according to news reports. The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center has warned Cambodian communities to brace for potentially record-breaking numbers of deportations in 2018.
“The deportation of refugees is inhumane,” Vaj says. “It’s a human rights violation to send us back.”
Sophal Chuk’s absence is already affecting his family. When his wife of 25 years found out that her husband had been arrested, she had a panic attack and fainted. Bennett is worried about what the stress might do to her mother, who has medical problems and hasn’t been eating or sleeping since her husband’s arrest.
Geoffrey Heeren, director of the UW Law School Immigration Law Clinic, and Aissa Olivarez, the staff attorney at the Community Immigration Law Center, are representing Sophal Chuk.
“I feel positive,” Bennett says. “I feel like as long as we have help and a legal strategy, that will make his case stronger.”