As deportations of southeast Asians ramp up, community organizes response

President Donald Trump’s campaign to deport immigrants en masse has reached the southeast Asian community in East St. Paul and beyond.

More than 150 southeast Asians have been deported from Minnesota since May, according to MN8, a Southeast Asian political advocacy group. More are awaiting deportation at an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.

Many of those deported were brought to the U.S. as children as their parents fled the destruction of the Vietnam War and what’s known as the Secret War in Laos. The CIA recruited Hmong people in Laos to fight against the North Vietnamese army; many of the surviving soldiers fled with their families to the U.S. after the war. 

Activists gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul Sunday to call attention to the deportations and discuss how to respond.

“Those same children who came as refugees are being sent back to the countries their family originally fled from by the same government that was responsible for their displacement 50 years ago,” said Montha Chum, executive director of MN8.

The Trump administration has highlighted the criminal records of the southeast Asian deportees. Many of those deported had served their sentences and became productive members of society, said Mai Neng Moua, an immigration attorney and board chair of MN8.

Rep. Kaohly Vang Her, DFL-St. Paul, was three years old when her parents joined the initial wave of Hmong refugees fleeing Laos for the U.S.; her grandfather was a colonel in the Secret War. 

Her — also a candidate for mayor of St. Paul — and MN8 supported reforms to the state pardon and clemency process that were passed by the DFL-controlled Legislature in 2023. Those reforms are of particular importance to immigrants with felonies on their records, who may be subject to deportation. 

Her said after Trump was elected to a second term, she and Rep. Liz Lee, DFL-St. Paul, met with staff from the administration of Joe Biden to ask for expedited pardons — including for those who could be at risk of deportation due to prior convictions. But the administration didn’t have enough time to issue the pardons, according to Her. 

“We felt so hopeless because we knew what was going to be coming for our communities,” Her said.

MN8 is working with other organizations to gather information on deportees, connect deportees to their families and send care packages upon their arrival in their new — often unfamiliar — country, Chum said.

Attendees held a moment of silence for those detained by ICE; those who have died in ICE custody this year; those who died fleeing from immigration enforcement or seeking asylum; and those who never had a chance to request asylum.