Former child refugee Phoeun You stands at his balcony overlooking Sen Sok in Phnom Penh, Cambodia after being deported from the US without warning.
Module 5: Current Exclusionary Policies
Who “belongs” in the United States?
Born in Cambodia, Sok Khoeun Loeun grew up in Fresno, California, where his family resettled as refugees. In 2015 Loeun’s mother, Nath Meas, finally saved enough money from her doughnut shop to take her family—parents, children, and grandchildren—on a trip back to Cambodia. The momentous trip included visiting the village Loeun’s parents grew up, as well as where his father witnessed his brother’s murder during the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime.
When the family returned to the US, a customs agent stopped Loeun because of a marijuana possession charge from 2012, for which he had already served a sentence. The agent did not believe Loeun was a citizen and detained him for hours. His family could not afford a lawyer, and Loeun feared that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could deport him anytime if he remained in Fresno. The agent suggested an “easy” solution: Loeun could self-deport. Under duress, Loeun accepted this option, and voluntarily left for Cambodia.
However, the government missed one significant piece of information: Loeun had already naturalized as a US citizen when he was twelve years old, when his mother became a citizen. His deportation order was invalid due to a simple clerical error. After five years in Cambodia, Loeun finally returned to the United States.
Unfortunately, many migrants today face similar unfair deportation practices. This module outlines contemporary discrimination policies and practices that continue to exclude Asian Americans from everyday life.
This module explores recent policies, laws, and institutions that exclude Asian Americans from this nation, especially through deportation. The rhetoric that establishes such policies also fuels interpersonal practices of exclusion, as we will see in the case of COVID-19 racism.
How are forms of exclusion still practiced against Asian Americans today?
How do race, ethnicity, and religion impact contemporary forms of exclusion?
How do contemporary stereotypes that Asian Americans are model minorities or perpetual foreigners reinforce the exclusion of Asian Americans?
Southeast Asian Resettlement
American wars throughout Southeast Asia during the 1950s to the 1970s caused the largest influx of refugees in US history. Because of their association with the American military in conflict with Communist forces in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, thousands of families faced persecution in their homelands and had to flee.
Image 42.05.01 — Between 1975 and 1996, 1.2 million Southeast Asian Americans arrived in the United States as refugees. In this photo, a Vietnamese family is seen at an arriving center in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, under the auspices of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
In 1980 Congress passed the United States Refugee Act, which raised the number of refugees admitted and defined “refugee” as someone with “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 1
The government resettled Southeast Asian refugees across the nation, aiming to spread out populations to assimilate them into US society easily and quickly. However, refugees tended to re-migrate, joining relatives and community members in other cities. The relocation into poor neighborhoods where they had little language support, and the traumatic experiences many refugees had made resettlement difficult, placing many in cycles of poverty and violence that were difficult to break.
Ny Nourn’s Story
For instance, Ny Nourn is a Cambodian refugee and survivor of domestic violence whose story can teach us about the hardships Southeast Asian refugees faced. Nourn was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and resettled in San Diego, California, with her mother.
Sadly, Nourn recalled the repeated domestic abuse her mother endured at the hands of Nourn’s stepfather, a Vietnamese refugee. “He was young, we lived in one-bedroom housing in impoverished communities in a country that didn’t really accept us or offer resources to help,” she said. “He worked long hours as a mechanic, then came home and drank and smoked.” 2 Without resources for support, Nourn and her mother had nowhere to run from his violent actions.
Image 42.05.02 — After her mother fled from the Khmer Rouge regime on foot from Cambodia, Ny Nourn was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. She and her mother eventually resettled in San Diego, California, when she was five years old.
Witnessing her mother’s abuse, protecting her sibling from it, and hiding her experiences from classmates and teachers, Nourn sought escape and validation outside the home. She soon became trapped in her own abusive relationship.
At seventeen, Nourn met Ron Barker, a thirty-seven-year-old Vietnamese man who at first made Nourn feel cared for. But Barker’s jealousy and control quickly escalated into abuse and violence. It culminated one evening when Barker forced Nourn to lure her boss into a trap. Barker shot him, threatened to kill Nourn and her family if she told anyone, and continued to control, monitor, and terrorize her for the next three years.
With the help of trusted friends from her workplace, Nourn finally told authorities what happened. However, they charged both her and Barker with murder. After spending fifteen years in prison with counselors and other incarcerated women who helped process her trauma, Nourn earned parole. Yet, she then found herself subject to deportation. Passed in 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) mandated that non-citizens with certain felony offenses be deported. Despite the fact that she served her sentence and obtained parole, Nourn faced yet another punishment as a non-citizen refugee. Currently, many noncitizens with records face similar fears of family separation due to mass deportation policies and practices.
Image 42.05.03 — After fifteen years in prison, Ny Nourn was paroled, but found herself subject to deportation due to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). She was eventually pardoned by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020.
Detention and Deportation Policies
Although the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the Refugee Act of 1980 expanded US-immigration policies, lawful restriction and exclusion still persisted. “Aliens ineligible to citizenship”—the terminology sanctioned by the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act)—was no longer an enforceable category by law. Instead, new policies starting in the 1980s focused on who is or is not “documented,” “authorized,” or “legal,” to detain and deport individuals.
Just as Asian migrant communities were dehumanized as the Yellow or Dusky Peril in the past, xenophobic politicians labeled non-citizens and undocumented immigrants as “illegals.” This scapegoating and vilification of migrants paved the way for subsequent anti-immigrant legislation. For example, the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986, the Immigration Act of 1990, and IIRIRA in 1996 each increased penalties against unauthorized immigrants and non-citizens.
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA)
In particular, IIRIRA made it easier to deport legal residents of the United States, especially if they had been convicted of a felony offense. For instance, even though Ny Nourn held the status of a refugee and a permanent resident, her offense left her vulnerable to deportation. Fortunately, with community help, she was able to convince California Governor Gavin Newsom to pardon her case in 2020, removing the basis for her deportation. Still, not all formerly incarcerated refugees could obtain the same break.
IIRIRA disproportionately impacted Southeast Asian refugees, many of whom resettled in low-income neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s, experiencing violence in over-policed neighborhoods. Many joined youth gangs for protection, got arrested, and received felony offenses. Despite having already served their sentences by 1996, many received deportation orders because IIRIRA could be applied retroactively.
In 2018, over fifteen thousand Southeast Asian community members received final orders of deportation. Many arrived in the US as children and had only visited—or had never set foot in—Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. Some did not speak the languages of those countries.
Image 42.05.04a — Sok Loeun (kneeling), a US citizen, voluntarily self-deported to Cambodia in 2015. As of 2024, more than 17,000 Southeast Asian Americans have received notice of final deportation as a result of the 1996 Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).
Image 42.05.04b — After serving twenty-eight years in prison, Phoeun You was released on parole in 2021, but ultimately deported to Cambodia as a result of IIRIRA.
Post-9/11 Immigration and Deportation Policies
Southeast Asians were not the only groups targeted by immigration and deportation policies. Particularly after the 9/11 attacks, “anti-terrorism” policies discriminated against South Asian, Arab, and Muslim communities who were racialized and stereotyped as “terrorist” threats to “national security.” In 2001 President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terrorism,” and in 2003 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established to enforce immigration controls.
Through these acts, these communities became subject to mass surveillance. For example, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) screened and registered noncitizens from twenty-five countries, twenty-four of which were African or Asian nations with a Muslim majority. The DHS registered and surveilled over 138,000 individuals. Despite the fact that no terrorism convictions were ever made from this registry, the DHS placed over thirteen thousand of them deportation proceedings.
In these ways, detention and deportation policies continue to exclude certain groups. Scholars Edward Park and John Park term this current category of Asian Americans as “probationary Americans,” whose status is conditional based on the racial climate and their utility to the American economy.
Detention, surveillance, and deportation are major systems of violence enacted by the US government. These various policies perpetuate inequality by discriminating against Asian groups, disrupting the everyday lives of people, and tearing many families and communities apart.
Anti-Asian Violence
Asian Americans continue to face policies and practices of exclusion and discrimination based on racialized notions of danger and untrustworthiness. The most onerous and discriminatory include the Muslim Ban, the China Initiative, and COVID-19 rhetoric.
In 2017, President Donald Trump passed the “Muslim Ban,” or Executive Order 13769, which decreased refugee admission into the United States and named Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen as countries from where travel was restricted. Trump expanded the “Muslim ban” in 2020 to include immigrants and refugees from Myanmar, Iran, and North Korea, thus further fueling Islamophobic and xenophobic violence against these communities.
Just as the Muslim Ban racialized some groups as terrorists, the China Initiative branded others as spies and threats to national security. In 2018, the Department of Justice established the China Initiative, a program targeting Chinese immigrants for economic espionage and trade secret theft. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) racially profiled and arrested scientists of Chinese descent in the US, accusing them of providing national security information to the Chinese government. The program perpetuated anti-Chinese racism, and many researchers had been falsely accused and arrested.
Finally, the global COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-Asian violence that ensued negatively impacted Asian American communities in ways that evoked stereotypes of the “Yellow Peril” from the past. When news of the COVID-19 pandemic broke in early 2020, President Trump insisted on using the term “Chinese virus,” racializing the virus and stoking anti-Asian racism among the American public. The term distracted from scientific research to stop the spread of the virus, and instead placed blame on a group of people who had historically been perceived as disease-carriers in the US and threats to western democracy.
Millions of Asian Americans reported being victims of anti-Asian hate incidents, which ranged from verbal harassment and civil rights violations to being spat upon and physical assault. In one-fifth of these cases, perpetrators yelled, “Go back to China, you Ch**k!” as they rehearsed nativist and xenophobic animosity. The widespread harassment, according to one national survey, made half of Asians in the US feel unsafe due to their race.
These recent policies, rhetoric, and acts of hate demonstrate the conditional status of Asians in the United States, debunking the stereotype of Asian American groups as the “model minority.” As we learned in this module, South Asian, Arab, and Muslim communities were and are still profiled and discriminated against as threats to “national security,” while Southeast Asian communities are disproportionately targeted for deportation. Not just Chinese, but Asians as a whole suffered from the anti-Asian hate during the pandemic which led to their sense of being excluded.
Image 42.05.05 — A group of protestors in Spring 2021 call national attention to the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, fueled by racist rhetoric surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusion
Asian Americans continue to face exclusion today through both institutionalized policies and public racism. Stereotyped as threatening and dangerous—especially during times of war, pandemic, and economic downturn, they remain perpetual foreigners in the eyes of other Americans. Throughout Asian American history, however, Asians have challenged the injustices and exclusionary policies directed at them.
Through community support and advocacy from organizations such as the Asian Prisoner Support Committee and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Sok Khoeun Loeun and Ny Nourn’s deportation cases were canceled due to an outpour of community support. Nourn gives back as she works with others impacted by systems of violence, organizing with Survived and Punished, a volunteer organization aiming to end the criminalization of domestic and sexual abuse survivors.
Similarly, coalitions such as South Asian Americans Leading Together and Stop AAPI Hate have organized to challenge xenophobic policies and racist rhetoric targeting Asian American communities. Through collective action and policy efforts to expand education and awareness, they aim to change the narrative about who belongs in America.
Ultimately, the conditional status of Asian Americans as a racialized people of color raises two fundamental questions about our nation’s identity: Who is included and who can be excluded from America? Who can become an American? For Asian Americans, these questions have been a central issue that has marked their history in this nation.
Glossary terms in this module
deportation Where it’s used
Refers to the forced removal of a non-citizen from a country.
Immigration Act of 1924 Where it’s used
Also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, this law barred most Asian persons from immigrating and/or obtaining citizenship.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 Where it’s used
Also known as the Hart-Celler Act, this law ended the openly discriminatory national origins quota system and exclusion-era policies, replacing it with a system of preference for applicants with certain skills, advanced education, and family already in the United States. This law greatly changed American demographics, especially within the Asian American community.
Executive Order 13769 Where it’s used
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January 2017 that restricted immigration and entry of people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Generally referred to as the “Muslim ban,” this order has since been expanded with further executive orders.
