Phoeun You, an immigrant who was paroled from San Quentin State Prison, is speaking out after he was abruptly deported to Cambodia last week. Gia Vang reports.
Phoeun You, an immigrant who was paroled from San Quentin State Prison, is speaking out after he was abruptly deported to Cambodia.
“Freedom doesn’t feel like freedom to me,” he said.
You was in ICE custody after being released for serving more than 25 years of his sentence for killing someone in retaliation for harming a family member.
By all accounts from his supporters, You had turned his life around. Then a week ago, he said that he was deported to Cambodia without warning.
“I wasn’t ready to just go and leave like that,” he said.
You said that he was whisked away to various locations unable to make calls to family, friends, even his attorney, when he was finally told he was being deported.
“I was like ‘Wow!’ You know what I mean? I was just shocked and speechless. I didn’t know what to do or how to react,” he said. “It was traumatizing just to get plucked from somewhere and thrown somewhere else.”
You was in the country he left as a small child.
“A lot of sadness kind of crept in and I kind of wept that night,” he said.
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You said that he tries to find comfort in visiting the village he was born in. But his days are lived in transitional housing, feeling confined to his room because he’s trying to figure out things we don’t often think twice about like directions.
"After being incarcerated so long, still trying to figure out technology, like how do I get back?" he said. “But job wise, it’s a scary thing as well, you know. I feel like I have a lot of skills in the United States, but I don’t know if that’ll come into play here because of the language barrier,” he said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom can pardon him, but You said that he is skeptical.
You said as far as what kind of job he might get, he said it will likely be in media, as he became a layout designer and writer while at the San Quentin State Prison.
