PRI interviews Professor Cooper about deportations of Cambodians

A recent Supreme Court ruling could help stem a rising tide of deportations of Cambodians who spent most of their lives in the United States, Immigration Law Clinic Co-Director Holly Cooper told PRI.

The Immigration and Nationality Act’s citation of a “crime of violence” as a reason for deportation is too vague, the high court ruled in April. Cooper told PRI the ruling likely would affect the recent surge in deportees from the United States to Cambodia after criminal convictions.

Many of the deportees had arrived in the United States as child refugees. The PRI report highlighted the experiences of Sothy Kum, a longtime legal resident of Wisconsin who was deported to Cambodia after serving a year-long sentence in a U.S. prison for possessing marijuana with the intent to deliver. Kum , 41,had left Cambodia at age 2.

Holly Cooper ’98, co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic, has extensive litigation experience defending the rights of immigrants and is a nationally recognized expert on immigration detention issues and on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions.