His Family Aided U.S. in Vietnam War. Now He Faces Deportation to Laos.

The Washington Post

12:07 JST, October 4, 2025

LANSING, Michigan – Hours before a deportation flight to Laos, Lue Yang had one thing in mind while shackled to fellow detainees at an immigration facility in Louisiana in early September: This could mean the end of his freedom and, perhaps, worse.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Yang, 47, a father of six from Clinton County, Michigan, and more than a dozen ethnically Hmong residents in that state in July based on decades-old criminal convictions. A communist nation, Laos has long refused to accept the repatriation of refugees like Yang, whose family fled political persecution in the 1970s after his father aided the United States during the Vietnam War.

But Laos has appeared to change its policy this year under intense pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has begun targeting Hmong refugee communities, mainly clustered in the Upper Midwest, and sending them to Laos, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations. Many of the detainees have no recollection of the country where they are being sent to and could face discrimination or physical harm if they are returned, immigrant rights advocates said.

Yang, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, received a reprieve at the last moment. He was kept off the deportation flight because it was too full with other detainees, said his wife, Ann Vue, who maintains communication with him and described Yang’s mindset in an interview with The Washington Post. An ICE spokesperson said Yang was removed “for logistical reasons.”

As the Trump administration has ramped up its mass deportation campaign, federal authorities say they have prioritized the removal of immigrants with criminal records and outstanding removal orders, some of which are years or decades old. Civil rights groups say such tactics disrupt communities, tearing apart families and, in many cases, punishing people who have already paid their debt to society. Relatives of the Hmong detainees fear that sending them back to Laos is dangerous.

Lo Yang, Lue’s father, who was shot three times while serving in the Laotian army alongside U.S. forces, feels betrayed by the nation he helped half a century ago.

“Before I came to the U.S., I raised my hand and pledged to make a difference here, whether wealthy or not, and that’s how I raised Lue as well,” Lo Yang, 73, said in an interview. He choked up while speaking in his native Lao through an interpreter at a Lansing community center.

“If they know I served in the war, he will be executed – whether it’s the law or the community, they will seek retribution,” he added of the prospect his son could be sent to Laos.

The Laotian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. For years, the State Department has highlighted the persecution of Hmong Christians within Laos.

The ICE spokesperson pointed to Lue Yang’s felony conviction for second-degree home invasion (attempted) in 1997 when he was 19 and a removal order issued by an immigration judge in 2001. The agency is “fully committed to removing Mr. Yang and other criminal illegal aliens with final orders of removal, as they pose a threat to public safety and violate our immigration laws,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

In response, the Southeast Asian community in Michigan has banded together to push publicly for the return of their family members.

At a community center outside Lansing, the state capital, in late August, the families traded advice about coping with losing their loved ones and, in some cases, a significant portion of their household income. Mothers wore T-shirts bearing slogans including, “Families belong together,” as their children played in the fading sun and ate cookies.

Shoua Yang, who is not related to Lue, said she has taken on extra shifts at the automotive engineering company where she works since her husband Fue, 45, was detained in mid-July and later deported to Laos. She said he was convicted in 2002 on a second-degree home invasion charge and lost the legal permanent residency status he was awarded as an infant after his father aided U.S. troops during the Vietnam War.

“Not having him here has been really emotionally stressful for me and financially stressful,” Shoua said. “I’m really upset that he won’t be here to watch my kids grow up.”

Targeted for deportation

The Hmong community has been sporadically targeted by ICE over the past decade, often alongside other Southeast Asian groups from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

In Trump’s first term, his administration attempted to deport some of the estimated 4,800 people ICE identified as Laotian nationals who had active removal orders – some because they were convicted of a crime. Those efforts were slowed because that country has had a long-standing policy of not accepting repatriation flights.

But the Laotian government began issuing travel documents to deportees after the Trump administration added Laos to a list of nations whose citizens are subject to a partial travel ban to the United States. Civil rights groups accuse the Laotian government of now helping facilitate deportations to curry favor with Trump.

The number of repatriation flights to Laos has accelerated in recent months, according to civil rights groups that monitor deportations. (ICE has not released up-to-date data on deportations by country.)

Human Rights First, an advocacy group, has tracked three flights to Laos this year – in May, August and September. Two involved ICE charter planes that have a capacity of 180 passengers apiece. The only other deportation flight to Laos since the flight tracking began in 2020 was a 14-seat jet in September 2022, the group said.

ICE officers arrested Lue Yang on July 15 at the automotive manufacturer where he worked in St. John’s, Michigan, and sent him to ICE’s North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin County, two hours from his hometown, according to his lawyer.

On July 30, ICE arrested a dozen Laotian immigrants in Michigan – 11 men and one woman – who the agency said have past convictions for serious crimes, including robbery, sexual misconduct, bank fraud and drug distribution.

Those 12 detainees were transported from Baldwin to the Alexandria Staging Facility in rural Louisiana, the country’s only ICE-operated prison within an airport complex. They were handcuffed on a 60-hour flight to Laos, the country where their parents were born and fled. Many of them were born in refugee camps or left Laos as infants.

The ICE spokesperson said detainees are shackled “to ensure the safety of officers, crew, and other detainees.”

Among them was Wa Kong Lor, 44, who has felony convictions for property theft, drug possession and carrying a firearm for unlawful intent. He was convicted of these offenses in his early 20s, said his wife, Mai Yiaxiong, 37.

When his family saw his face on Fox News during a report, Yiaxiong told her four children it was not him and claimed he was staying with a relative.

“I just haven’t really sat down with them and told them what’s going on,” she said. “I will, but I’m still trying to get over it first.”

‘Caught in the middle’

Lue Yang told family members that his felony conviction in 1997 stems from an incident in which a group of unarmed teens targeted an empty house. He said he remained in a car parked outside as the others broke in.

A plea deal resulted in Yang spending 10 months in jail. He also surrendered the green card that had provided him legal status when his family arrived in 1979, after fleeing the Secret War, an offshoot of the conflict in Vietnam.

Yang’s family and attorney said he does not have citizenship in any country. The ICE spokesperson said that, since his parents are from Laos and Thailand does not grant birthright citizenship, Yang is subject to removal to Laos.

Though an immigration judge approved a deportation order for Yang in 2001, his family said the government made no previous attempts to deport him and his work permit had been repeatedly renewed.

Yang has built a successful life, working as an automotive engineer and serving as president of Lansing’s Hmong Family Association. His six children range in age from 7 to 24.

In 2018, Yang’s criminal record was cleared under Michigan’s Expungement Law, which allowed individuals with one felony conviction or two misdemeanors to clear their records after a few years. This process became automatic for certain criminal offenses under the state’s Clean Slate Act in 2020.

However, the process did not restore his immigration status, which is determined by the federal government. His immigration paperwork attests that he regularly checked in with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of his release conditions and reapplied annually for his work permit. His most recent permit expired on May 22, but he had received acknowledgment that the agency was processing his renewal application, associates said.

He has been held at the Pine Prairie immigration detention facility in Louisiana since he was kept off the deportation flight in early September. His lawyers have filed a request with ICE for a temporary pause on his final removal order and submitted a pardon application to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) as part of a bid to halt his deportation.

“My parents struggled creating a new life in America,” Yang wrote in the application. “I resented being a Hmong refugee child and struggled to find belonging. Without strong and consistent mentorship, I did not learn good decision-making skills.”

Whitmer’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Joseph Yang, an attorney who represented Lue Yang in his expungement application and is not related to him, said the Trump administration is wrong to use a blanket approach to target everyone with outstanding deportation orders.

“If you do it in broad strokes, people like Lue get caught in the middle,” he said.

As a traditional Hmong spiritual leader, Lue Yang performed blessings at births, weddings and funerals. Now, that community is fighting for him, publicizing his case at a news conference in August with state legislators.

His absence was felt at the Lansing community center, where Yang’s son Akio, a soccer player dressed in a gray hoodie, burst into tears when talking about his father.

“My dad taught me how to be a good person and learn from his mistakes,” the 16-year-old said. “He told me that he didn’t really grow up the best and, you know, wanted a better life for his kids.”