A US war forced her parents to flee. Now, a Wisconsin mother has been deported back to the country she never called home

CNN

2 days ago

Ma Yang arrived at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in late February with a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Several days earlier, she had received a call from ICE asking her to report to her local field office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – more than six months before she was due for her annual check-in.
President Donald Trump had been inaugurated for a second time and his administration had already moved ahead with its promise to deport millions of immigrants from the US.
'In my gut, I already knew something was off,' Yang told CNN.
Yang, a 37-year-old mother of five, was detained that day and deported two weeks later to Laos – a small country in Southeast Asia that her parents had fled four decades earlier.
Yang had never been to Laos, is not a Laos citizen and does not speak Lao.
Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, Yang resettled in the US with her parents and older siblings when she was 8 months old. She is Hmong, an ethnic minority group in Southeast Asia who helped the CIA during its so-called Secret War which ran parallel to the Vietnam War. Many Hmong, including Yang's parents, fled Laos after the fall of Saigon.
Yang lived for decades in the US legally as a permanent resident until she pleaded guilty to marijuana-related charges in 2022. Under US law, non-citizens can lose their visas if convicted of certain crimes.
After serving her sentence, Yang was transferred to an ICE detention facility and released in 2023 with a removal order from the US. Yang said her lawyer at the time assured her the removal order would not be acted upon – deportations to Southeast Asia were exceedingly rare.
But that appears to be changing. Months into Trump's second term, as his administration ramps up its immigration crackdown, hundreds of people have been quietly deported to Laos and Vietnam, immigrant rights advocates say, in a stark departure from decades of US immigration policy in the region.
The reported uptick in deportations to Southeast Asia comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on countries, including some with poor human rights records, to accept US deportees, alongside sweeping policy changes that include punishing tariffs and travel bans.
Yang's deportation to Laos – a country her parents were forced to flee following US military intervention – underscores the sweeping and aggressive tactics Trump's White House is using to expel immigrants.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed Yang's deportation in a statement to CNN.
'Under President Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,' McLaughlin said.
'Criminal aliens are not welcome in the US.'
Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines that ran through the country, which is roughly the size of Oregon. The CIA recruited the Hmong to help them carry out their covert war against communist forces in Laos and Vietnam.
The war decimated Laos and the Hmong. More cluster munitions were dropped on Laos during the Secret War than on Germany and Japan combined during World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.
An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Hmong civilians and soldiers were killed – a tenth of the Hmong population in Laos. Following the US withdrawal, the Laos communist regime declared the Hmong enemies of the state. Roughly 150,000 fled to neighboring Thailand, and later the US, mainly settling in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Yang, her parents and her older siblings arrived in Milwaukee, sponsored by a church as part of a mass refugee resettlement program that brought more than one million people from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to the US in the decades after the war.
Growing up, Yang was one of 13 siblings, and her parents worked from sunrise to sundown to provide for their children.
'Life in America was tough for us,' Yang said. 'We were really poor.'
Yang had her first child at 14 and married an abusive man who struggled with drug addiction.
Eventually, after another baby and a divorce, she settled into a calmer life with her long-term partner Michael Bub, and they went on to have three more children.
Yang's life was not easy, and she worked hard to be present for her kids. Yang and Bub gave their kids a slice of American life, with trips to the McDonald's playground and shopping at Walmart. The family would frequently gather around her table for warm bowls of khao poon, a curried noodle soup from Laos – her kids' favorite.
For years, Yang worked as a nail technician in a salon in Milwaukee, but it closed during the pandemic and money was tight. One of Yang's family members asked if she and Bub wanted to make a few extra bucks by helping to fill marijuana vape cartridges and allowing packages to be shipped to their house.
'That one decision made our lives change tremendously,' Yang said.
Yang said she was given poor legal advice, and if she had known a guilty plea would threaten her immigration status, she would have fought the charges. Instead, Yang pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Bub was also sentenced to two years in prison but is a US citizen.
Yang and Bub were in the process of rebuilding their lives before she was deported. They had recently bought a house in a better neighborhood.
'We got out, and we said we wanted to do better for ourselves and for our children,' Yang said. 'I never in a million years thought this would happen.'
Yang is now living more than 8,100 miles away from Milwaukee in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, and facing down her future in an unfamiliar place, separated from her five children and partner.
'For me to get ripped away from my children is the most shocking,' Yang said, adding that her children are struggling to cope with her sudden disappearance. 'I was there, and then I wasn't.'
Over Memorial Day weekend in May, as Americans mourned veterans who died in combat, a flight carrying more than 150 people who were once displaced by US wars left on a one-way flight from Dallas, Texas.
Since Trump returned to office in January, advocates say his administration has deported hundreds of people to Vietnam and Laos. ICE does not have up-to-date data on deportations to specific countries, so immigrant rights groups have stepped in to fill the void.
Vo Danh, a collective of organizers which advocates on behalf of immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia, reported 65 people were deported to Laos and 93 to Vietnam on the Memorial Day weekend flight. In the days leading up to the flight's departure, advocates had noticed dozens of immigrants from Southeast Asia being transferred from detention centers across the US to a facility in Dallas.
Immigration advocate Tom Cartright, who tracks chartered ICE flights, noted that in May, Laos accepted its largest flight of US deportees since he started tracking in January 2020 – a flight which then carried on to Vietnam.
A spokesperson for Vo Danh, which has been tracking deportations on a case-by-case basis through its network of family members, estimates almost 300 people have been deported to Vietnam and 80 have been deported to Laos in the few months since Trump returned to power. By comparison, between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, 145 people considered by ICE to be nationals of Vietnam and just six considered to be nationals of Laos were deported, according to ICE.
The DHS, ICE and the White House did not answer questions from CNN about how many people have been deported to Laos and Vietnam since Trump returned to office.
A consular officer at the Lao Embassy in Washington, DC, told the Minnesota Star Tribune in July it has issued travel documents for 145 people to be deported in 2025, compared to about 10 in a typical year.
Advocates predict another wave of people will be deported soon. Last month, the Homeland Security Investigations field office in St. Paul – which boasts a large Hmong population – announced on X a slew of arrests of 'illegal aliens' from Laos.
Many of the people deported from the US to Southeast Asia in recent months are former refugees who committed crimes, some decades ago, and pleaded guilty without realizing they were risking their right to remain in the US, said Connie Chung Joe, the CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, the US's largest legal and civil rights organization for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
'They came here as war-torn refugees, very poor, limited English proficiency, without any cultural ties, and then the community did not have safety net support,' Joe said. 'So, you saw a lot of trouble that came out, including the proliferation of things like gangs, young people getting into trouble, and they would end up with some sort of criminal background.'
Because of the risks these refugees faced if they returned home, and the refusal of some Southeast Asian countries to accept deportees from the US, relatively few people with removal orders – legal directives ordering a non-US citizen to leave the country – were deported.
Instead, after making their way through the US criminal justice system, many Southeast Asians were told to report to ICE for annual check-ins while they continued their life in the US.
As of May, 4,749 people considered by ICE to be nationals of Laos had removal orders from the US, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which tracks immigration court data. There were 10,745 Vietnamese nationals with removal orders, according to TRAC.
'The majority of individuals (who have been deported) are American in everything except for their green card,' said Quyen Dinh, Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.
'They are spouses to US partners, they have US children, they are taking care of elders who also fled as refugees of war and genocide.'
During his first term, Trump struck a new deal with Vietnam to accept immigrants who came to the US before 1995, including war refugees, superseding a 2008 agreement not to deport them. The US also introduced new visa sanctions on Laotian government officials to push the country to accept deportees. But Trump left office before these plans could materialize, and the Biden administration lifted the Laos visa sanctions.
Since returning to office, Trump has increased pressure on countries to accept deportees from the US – even deportees who are not citizens of those countries. After a court challenge, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could deport migrants to countries other than their homeland, including South Sudan and Libya, with minimal notice.
Last month, the Trump administration introduced full and partial travel bans on citizens from 19 countries, including Laos, citing the country's visa overstay rate and historic refusal to 'accept back its removable nationals.'
McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, said Yang was released from ICE custody in 2023 'because at the time ICE could not remove aliens to Laos due to the country's refusal to issue travel documents. Now, under President Trump's leadership, Laos is issuing travel documents and Yang was able to be returned.'
However, because Yang was born in a refugee camp, she is not a citizen of Laos and is considered stateless – a precarious legal status whereby someone is not considered a national of any state.
Yang currently has a temporary ID card in Laos and was told by authorities that she will be eligible for citizenship, but it could take one year or more.
Bub, Yang's partner, has undergone several brain surgeries and receives disability payments from the government. He is now struggling to support five children as a single father.
Before Yang was deported, the couple were also caring for Yang's mother, who had suffered two strokes. But Bub found it too difficult to care for her and five children, so she's had to find alternative care.
The couple say the family is serving a second sentence for their crime.
'We paid for what we did,' Bub told CNN.
When Yang was deported, he said 'I wanted to trade places with her if they'd let me.'
Dinh, from the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, said the American government should be accountable for the fate of refugees from US wars. She and other advocacy groups are fighting to enshrine the status of Southeast Asian immigrants in the US and protect them against deportation.
'Our communities lost our entire homelands and livelihoods because of the destruction of our home countries, because of US decisions and US hands and US forces,' she said. 'When you accept a refugee, it is for the duration and the lifetime of the harm that you have done and have created.'
Yang's family has created a GoFundMe to raise money to hire a lawyer to help reunite her with her kids in the US.
'I don't want to be forgotten,' Yang said. 'I want to fight to the very end for my case.'
Each month she is away, she faces painful reminders of what she is missing out on. Last month, she missed her youngest daughter's graduation from kindergarten. Her eldest child, who was born when Yang was just 14, is taking the separation particularly hard. 'We raised each other,' Yang said.
Yang's 12-year-old daughter recently told her she wanted to attend an anti-Trump rally to protest the immigration policies that had taken her mother away from her.
'This is not right,' Yang said. 'No kid should fear that this is what they have to do in order for their family to stay.'