Vang: One Minnesota woman's deportation story She came to Minnesota as a child refugee in the 1980s.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://www.startribune.com/human-cost-of-deportation-trump-immigration-enforcement-ice/601559723

She arrived in America in the early 1980s, part of the wave of Hmong refugees resettled here after the Secret War. Minnesota became her home. She grew up here and lived most her life here. Her family is here. And yet, last year, she was deported to Laos.

----


I am telling her story because Minnesotans deserve to understand what deportation actually does to a human life — what happens after the headlines fade, after the handcuffs are removed, after someone is forced to leave the only home they remember.

“I feel betrayed by America,” she told me. Though she never became a citizen, she was a lawful permanent resident with the right to work and reside in the U.S.


-----

When she landed in Laos, she was told she needed a local sponsor to leave the detention center, which was also a military base, but which she said felt like a prison. She had no one in Laos to help her. She waited. There was food, she said. A bed.

After a few weeks, her father, who is still in the U.S., found someone willing to sponsor her release after being paid. She told me some deportees choose to stay in the detention center for fear of being homeless, exploited, trafficked or worse.

Outside the gates, there was nothing waiting. No social services. No resettlement agency. No plan.

“This country is not like America,” she told me. “There is no law and order.”