Southeast Asian refugees cast out of Trump’s US face exile in unknown lands
Born in a Thai refugee camp and raised in Texas, Kham Paneboun is now stateless in Laos, one of thousands punished again for old crimes
The tattoo on his arm reads “buc Lao” (Laos boy) but Kham Paneboun is not a Laotian citizen. In fact, he’s not really from anywhere.
Kham, 43, was torn from his wife and four children, aged three to 12, who remain in Texas – a family now paying for a “bad mistake” he made in his late teens: an aggravated assault that led to two years in prison and the loss of his green card.
He insists, and produces letters of support from his employer as proof, that he has committed no offence since his release, living lawfully in the US for 17 years as a warehouse foreman and family man.
In the ICE age – the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement – that routine appointment became a trapdoor to deportation.