The first Cambodian deportee to return to the U.S. just became a citizen in Sacramento

The first Cambodian American deportee to return home just became a United States citizen.

The oath ceremony was nothing like what Phorn Tem imagined it would be like. There were no chairs and everyone stood 6 feet apart with masks on their face.

They also weren’t allowed to have guests, so Tem went into the ceremony without his family or friends to witness.

“When I raised my right hand (at the oath ceremony), I said to myself, ‘Damn, this couldn’t be real,’” Tem said. “I thought I was dreaming at first.”

When Tem, 35, was pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on his way to a gym in October 2017 and was later deported, he thought he would be stuck for the rest of his life in Cambodia, a country he had never visited.

But in November 2018, Tem flew home to family and friends in Sacramento, and on June 24, he became a U.S. citizen.

It’s an unprecedented case, according to Melanie Kim, a staff attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s Asian Law Caucus and one of the attorneys involved in Tem’s case. No one who had been deported from the U.S. to Cambodia had returned.

In Cambodia, Tem would have dreams about being in the U.S. at home with his family and friends only to wake up and remember all over again he had been removed.

“It was depressing, lonely, stressful,” Tem said.

‘A really heavy weight’ finally lifted

Tem was born in a Thailand refugee camp after his parents fled the violence and genocide from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime. When he was 5, the family moved to the U.S. and settled in South Sacramento as legal permanent residents.

Tem was convicted of possession of marijuana for sale when he was 24, which led to a final order for deportation in 2011. But the Cambodian government was reluctant to accept deportees and rarely issued travel documents for deportation. So instead, Tem had annual check-ins with ICE agents.

“I didn’t know when it would be my time to go,” Tem said. “I would always look out the window like, ‘Damn, I hope they’re not out there.’ The day I didn’t look, I got pulled over.”

In September 2017, the U.S. began visa sanctions against Cambodia to pressure them to accept deportees. The following month, Tem was swept into the largest wave of Cambodian nationals detained by ICE for deportation ever, Kim said. Between 100 to 200 people, many of them refugees, were detained nationwide.

Kim’s team and his family rushed to find a way to prevent his removal. In May 2018, eight months after Tem was detained, a Sacramento Superior Court judge vacated his criminal conviction on the grounds that Tem was not properly informed of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty.

The victory was hollow: Tem had been deported to Cambodia just one day before.

“It … was devastating. We were so close,” Kim said.

Tem’s younger sister Sarim, who works in a grocery store, took on extra shifts for money to send overseas. At one point, Sarim said, their family started saving to visit Tem in Cambodia on his birthday, preparing for a future where he couldn’t come home.

It was particularly difficult for their mother, Sarim said, as Tem was detained by ICE almost exactly one year after their father died.

“I was scared,” Sarim said. “Never in a million years would I ever think that he would be able to come back. I’d never known anybody that was in this type of situation.”

A few months later, Tem’s deportation order was reversed and in November 2018 he came home. He’s one of only four deportees to Cambodia who have come home so far, Kim said.

It was his family’s persistence, Kim said, that helped move the case forward and the support Tem needed to survive in Cambodia.

“When I first started talking to Sarim … I really didn’t think that there was hope for Phorn,” Kim said. “But it was really … her not taking no for an answer from me that made this possible.”

Now, Sarim said, she finally feels like she can breathe.

“I feel like I have a really heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders,” Sarim said.

A fresh appreciation for life as a citizen

The six months Tem spent in Cambodia “seemed like years,” he said. He had trouble finding steady work because he is not fluent in Khmer. Most of his days were spent on video calls with his family, going to the gym and walking around Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital.

Even after coming home and applying for citizenship, Tem was still on edge. It took six months for him to get his test results back — he checked the mail every day, Sarim said — and then another three months to schedule an in-person oath ceremony.

It wasn’t until he exited Sacramento’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office after his oath ceremony, fresh citizenship certificate in hand, that he finally felt free.

“Even though I came to the U.S. and was reinstated and everything, I was still scared. I was still nervous,” Tem said. “Once I walked across the street … I was in the parking lot, and I thought, ‘Dang, now I can move on.’”

Tem is eager to explore the freedoms of his new citizenship status, even the mundane duties it comes with.

“I feel excited,” Tem said. “I get to vote for the first time, I get to go to jury duty. Even though it’s boring, I want to experience that because that’s part of being a citizen.”

But what he’s most looking forward to is getting a passport. Once the danger of the coronavirus pandemic subsides, he’ll be on a plane. He’ll even go back to Cambodia, just to remember and reflect on what he’s been through.

“Before, I was restricted,” Tem said. “I (couldn’t) leave the U.S. If I do, I can’t come back … I’m just going to throw a pin needle at a map and take it from there.”

Since coming home, Tem has developed a new appreciation for his life here. He’s spending more time exploring California’s mountain ranges and hiking, especially around Lake Tahoe. He’s also grateful for the convenience of fast food and Sacramento’s weather.

Tem is relieved to have the safety net of citizenship, he said, but hundreds of deportees still remain in Cambodia, stuck in a country many of them never knew as home. He’s still in contact with the deportees he befriended, but several have had to move on from dreams of returning to their family and friends, he said.

“Everyone should be able to come home and be with their family, whether or not they make a mistake in the past,” Tem said.

This story was originally published July 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.