Burlington Protest Against ICE Detentions Of Cambodian Americans

BURLINGTON, MA — Protesters gathered outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington, Wednesday morning, to protest planned detentions of Cambodian immigrants. According to ICE, deportations of Cambodian citizens increased by 279% from 2017 to 2018, with 110 deported in 2018. The protest was organized by the Asian American Resource Workshop and Greater Boston Legal Services.

The protest coincided with other protests in Sacramento, San Francisco, Tacoma and Warwick. Lowell has the second-highest Cambodian American population in the country.

WBUR reporter Shannon Dooling reported on Twitter that among six people who reported to the ICE office today, two were detained, while four were released, including Lynn resident Saray Im. Im, the subject of a change.org petition, fled Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide as a child, and committed a firearm crime when he was 21 for which he spent 3 years incarcerated and 2 years in ICE detention. Im is now married with children and has spent the last two decades living and working in Lynn, which also has a high immigrant population.

“I deserve to stay here with my family. I have paid for my crime and completely turned my life around. It is not fair that I am being punished for the rest of my life by deporting me to a country I fled at the age of 2,” Im said in a statement.

I’m at the @ICEgov office in Burlington where a group of protesters are gathered to speak against planned detentions of Cambodians in Mass. pic.twitter.com/NmGmHykgL8

Marcos D. Charles, ICE’s Boston field office acting director, said in a statement to the Lowell Sun: “ICE does not target individuals for arrest or removal based on ethnicity or race. ICE focuses its resources on the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who have received criminal convictions; have pending criminal charges; or are determined to be a national security or public safety threat.”