Immigrant-rights advocates protest 'unjust' deportation on MLK Day

CARRYING signs that blared "Stop Unjust Deportation," more than 200 immigrant-rights advocates took to the streets yesterday to rally against what they see as civil-rights injustices.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they marched to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, at 16th and Callowhill streets, raising their voices for Chally Dang, for Mout Iv, for Davy Phean, for Vanney Van.

The four Cambodian immigrants sit in York County Prison, detained by ICE. They had been welcomed into this country as refugees and became legal permanent residents.

But each had committed a crime, and although they served their prison times, under 1996 immigration laws they are deportable back to Cambodia without a hearing before an immigration judge on the merits of their cases.

Before the march, supporters gathered at the Arch Street United Methodist Church, on North Broad Street, where state Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Phila., told them: "Martin Luther King loved demonstrations. . . . It is clear members of the Cambodian community and others being deported for crimes committed in the past . . . should not be deported."

The Rev. Robin Hynicka, church pastor, said that community service on MLK Day "just doesn't cut it." Instead, what the immigrant-rights groups were doing - standing up for human rights, protesting - is what makes "life worth living for me," he said.

Dang was 15 when he committed an aggravated assault. He served five-plus years in prison.

He is now 28, married and a father of four kids, ages 3 months to 6 years. He was working for a vending company when he and his fellow Cambodians were detained in Sept. 21. He now awaits deportation to Cambodia - a country he has never set foot in. Dang was born in a Thailand refugee camp.

"The person he was when he was 15, he's not that person anymore," his wife, Ana Maria Cruz, 27, said as she stood outside the ICE office, which was closed yesterday for the federal holiday.

"He doesn't deserve a double punishment."