Deported from the US, former Bhutanese refugees face uncertain future
In April, after more than eight years in the United States, Aashish Subedi was put on a plane and deported to Bhutan, his country of birth. But when he arrived, Bhutanese authorities didn’t welcome him home. Instead, officials transported him to the border with India and he made his way to Nepal. But he was stateless.
Subedi is among dozens of former Bhutanese refugees who have been deported from the US in recent weeks, human rights advocates say. A US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson provided Global Press Journal with a list of six former Bhutanese refugees who’d been deported in April, but acknowledged that the list was far from comprehensive. Subedi’s name was not on that list, but he provided Global Press Journal with his green card number and other identifying information. All of the people on the list were convicted of serious crimes while in the US. Subedi says he, too, had previously been found guilty of a felony. The deported people were originally among tens of thousands of Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa people that the Bhutanese government persecuted and forced from the country in the 1980s and 1990s. Most of these families found haven in refugee camps in Nepal, where they weren’t allowed to get citizenship. Some, like Subedi, ultimately moved to the US as refugees.
But now, Subedi, who used the first name of Aasis while in the US, is back in the refugee camp where he lived as a child. “I never imagined that I would be returning to the place where I grew up, this time as an undocumented person,” he says. “Now, my future is shrouded in uncertainty.: The case of Subedi and other deported former refugees calls into question the legality of deportation when the end result is statelessness. Under ordinary circumstances, agreements between countries govern deportation. In this case, it’s not clear whether the US had an agreement with Bhutan to deport people there. Representatives of the Bhutanese government did not respond to requests for information.
Even if Bhutan has agreed to receive the people, the deportations are “deeply alarming,” says Samantha Sitterley, an attorney at United Stateless, in an email to Global Press Journal. In general, she points out, it’s not legal for the US to deport people to a place where their lives or freedoms are threatened. “Bhutan has not changed its position towards this group, which includes the decision to explicitly deny them citizenship and other basic rights,” she says. An investigation is underway in the Nepali judicial system to determine what the former refugees’ future will hold. They no longer have authorization to live in Nepal since they were resettled in the US. And if they’re expelled from Nepal, no country in the world would be obligated to take them in.
Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, a refugee specialist at the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, says at least 30 Bhutanese people have been deported from the US, and at least 60 more are expected to be deported soon. Now, he says, they’re stateless. “These people have no country, no citizenship and no land to call their own,” Siwakoti says, summarizing the situation as a grave human rights violation.
Ramchandra Tiwari, a spokesperson for Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs, says the Nepali government is engaging with both the US and Bhutan to resolve the issue through legal means. “Returning people who have been officially recognized as refugees and resettled abroad,” he says, “is unforgivable under international law.”
Stateless
Subedi’s deportation was part of what ICE called a “targeted enforcement operation,” according to details provided by that agency to Global Press Journal. All the men on the list provided by ICE were admitted to the US as refugees and eventually became permanent residents. Their criminal histories include convictions for battery of and cruelty toward children, solicitation of a minor under the age of 15, possession of child pornography, robbery and a host of other crimes. Subedi says he was convicted of “gross sexual imposition,” a felony in the state of Ohio.
Judges had ordered at various times in recent years that all the men on the ICE list be removed from the US. The most common way someone loses their status as a permanent resident is due to criminal conviction, Sitterley says. If the former refugees lost their status, she says, “they were stateless when they were in the US.” The yearslong delay between the removal orders and the deportations indicates that “ICE had the authority to deport these people for quite some time but no place to send them, until now,” Sitterley says.
Himesh Krishna Kharel, a lawyer for Subedi and the other former refugees, says the men have been victims of criminalization since birth. Most didn’t know about the process for applying for US citizenship, he says. They also couldn’t afford lawyers to represent them in the criminal cases that ultimately figured into the US decision to deport them. “The US resettlement of refugees is a permanent solution,” says Ram Karki, founder of the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan. “If resettled people commit crimes, they should be prosecuted within the US legal system.”
Expelled and stranded
Subedi says he was taken by ICE directly from prison in March, and detained in Ohio. He was then moved to a series of detention facilities before being deported in April. He says he was one of 18 people that ICE officers accompanied to Bhutan. When they arrived, he says, after a day at a hotel, Bhutanese authorities took them to the Indian border crossing and handed them InRs 30,000 ($355) each.
Subedi remembers their words: “You have no right to be here—no language, no citizenship.” He moved through India, he says, and paid a broker to cross illegally into Nepal. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bhutan’s nationalist “One Nation, One People” policy targeted Lhotshampa Nepali speakers, stripping them of their citizenship and forcing nearly 100,000 people to Nepal. Many spent years, even decades, in refugee camps. From 2007 to 2018, more than 113,000 Bhutanese refugees were resettled from Nepal to third countries, making it one of the largest and most successful UNHCR resettlement programs in history. Some, though, still remain in camps in Nepal.
Subedi reunited with his father, Narayan Kumar Subedi, when he returned to the refugee camp in April. Narayan Kumar Subedi says he, his two wives and his son were expelled from Bhutan 33 years ago. They received refugee cards and lived in a refugee camp in Nepal, but weren’t allowed to pursue permanent residency or citizenship. Years later, when the international resettlement program began, one of his wives, son and a daughter who was born in the camp were deemed eligible for refugee status in the US.
Meanwhile, Narayan Kumar Subedi remained in the camp. Now, fate has brought his son back after nearly a decade—not as a citizen of any country but as a stateless person with no land or nationality to his name. The reunion was bittersweet. “I was emotional to see my son again,” he says. “For years, I sat alone in their empty bed, waiting for this moment.”
He called on the police to investigate the deportation. But when they arrived, they took his son away in handcuffs. Immigration officials ordered that he be sent back to the US. “These individuals came without documentation, and under current law we are forced to classify them as illegal immigrants,” says Tiwari, spokesperson for the Nepali Ministry of Home Affairs. Aashish Subedi says he was held in police custody for weeks while his legal status was investigated. During that time, his father filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court. On April 24, Subedi, along with three other former Bhutanese refugees who’d been deported from the US, listened to lawyers argue their cases.
The order finally came: temporary relief, a stay of deportation. But an investigation with a 60-day deadline is now underway for some of the former refugees, says Tulshi Bhattarai, the immigration officer leading the investigation. “Since they do not have any supporting documents, our interrogation is based on their statements,” Bhattarai says. Karki, of the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan, says the case illustrates Bhutan’s impunity when it comes to expelling its own people and underscores the need for Nepal to establish refugee resettlement terms. “Without such measures,” he says, “Bhutan will now face less accountability and may find it easier to reject or expel refugees again.”
This story was originally published by Global Press Journal
