Statement from Office of District 2 Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas
Friends, right now, three Cambodian American men— Kang Hen, Hay Hov, and Roeun Pich, fathers, sons and husbands from the Bay Area, two of whom are Oaklanders, are facing imminent deportation orders by the Trump Administration’s ICE based on decades old convictions, despite having demonstrated rehabilitation, solid jobs and families.
As the country celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and the many important contributions our diverse communities have made to our country, ICE raids have targeted Cambodian and other Southeast Asian Americans across the country including San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Kang Hen, Hay Hov, and Roeun Pich are Cambodian American refugees whose families fled the genocide in Cambodia and resettled in the Bay Area in 1985 when they were small children. In addition to the trauma from the violence they endured in Cambodia and the refugee camps in Southeast Asia, they each grew up in poverty, with few resources, and violence in their schools. As youth, they, like many other Cambodian Americans and others who came to this country as refugees, wound up in the criminal justice system because the communities they lived in were under resourced and over criminalized.
View our letter to Governor Newsom.
Today, we, on behalf of the Mayor and City Councilmembers of Oakland, sent a letter to Governor Newsom, urging him to use his clemency power to grant pardons for Kang Hen, Hay Hov, and Roeun Pich who were picked up and detained by ICE and are now under imminent federal orders to be deported to a country they left as children.
Please urge Governor Gavin Newsom to grant pardons for these three men.
Thank you to Mayor Libby Schaaf, Council President Rebecca Kaplan Vice Mayor Larry Reid- Oakland City Councilmember District 7, and Councilmember Sheng Thao, who joined this letter, and many thanks to the Asian Prisoner Support Committee - APSC, Center for Empowering Refugees, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus for bringing this important issue to our attention. We denounce all forms of family separation, trauma, and racial injustice that this Administration continues to inflict on the most vulnerable members of our community.