In November, federal agents raided a distribution facility in St. Paul called Bro-Tex Inc.
The day after the raid, Montha Chum attended a community vigil. She went for political reasons: Chum is the executive of an immigration advocacy organization called MN8. She went for personal reasons, too: The raid brought back a flood of painful memories. In 2016, ICE detained Chum’s brother and seven other Cambodian men from Minnesota.
Chum’s brother had a previous conviction: “He broke a window, served his time, and then, decades later … faced deportation,” Chum told Sahan Journal.
“When you think about communities of color… the sentencing that they get is like three or four times worse than like a white person would get.”
Chum and a group of family members launched the #ReleaseMN8 campaign to stop the deportations. (Chum’s brother ultimately avoided deportation and remains in Minnesota.) That campaign evolved into MN8, an immigrant-led advocacy and anti-deportation organization.
On Thursday, November 20, Chum joined Sahan Journal for an Instagram Live event to discuss how Southeast Asian people in Minnesota are responding to ICE’s stepped-up deportation push.
During the hour-long conversation, Chum discussed why she founded MN8, changes to the deportation process, and how the organization is working to protect detainees and deportees at home and abroad.
Here are some key takeaways from the conversation.
How has the deportation process changed during Trump’s second term?
The deportation process, Chum said, is moving faster, making it harder for families to prepare and find solutions. On August 26, 2016, Chum’s brother was detained; she spent a little over a year fighting for his release. He was freed in September 2017.
Chum: “[Back in 2016], we had a lot of time to plan, organize, strategize.,” Chum said. “Now, you can see that folks are being detained, and then, within like six weeks — probably at the latest six to eight weeks — people are getting deported.”
Why are Southeast Asians in Minnesota getting deported?
Some Southeast Asian Americans are getting deported for criminal convictions from decades ago. Many of these individuals have already served time and rebuilt their lives in the United States. Immigration law defines an “aggravated felony” broadly, enabling the deportation of individuals, like Chum’s brother, who committed relatively minor crimes.
Chum: “When people think or see the word ‘aggravated felony,’ they often associate it with very harsh, egregious crimes. Of course, my first thought is, like, murder or something.
I shared with you all that my brother was facing deportation because he broke a window at a bar during a bar fight. Because somebody attacked him, right? And because he was sentenced to a year in prison, even though he only had to serve 40 days. For immigration purposes, because of that 365-day sentence, it was considered an aggravated felony. And so therefore he was deportable under immigration law, even though, on a state level, he was only charged with a gross misdemeanor.”
How are Minnesota deportees adapting to foreign countries?
It is extremely challenging for deportees to rebuild their lives in a foreign country. The United States has maintained repatriation agreements with Cambodia and Vietnam for decades, so some infrastructure exists to support deportees there.
In Laos, it’s harder for deportees to rebuild their lives due to the lack of support. Most deportees do not speak the language. Many don’t have close family in the country. Chum said that upon arrival, deportees to Laos are detained at a military base for at least 30 days and require sponsorship to be removed. That makes them vulnerable to exploitation. If deportees appear to have some source of funds, Chum said, various groups in Laos may step forward to offer help. But they may end up taking funds from U.S. families and then fail to.
Chum: “In Cambodia… since 2002, there is a good chunk of folks that either have committed suicide, [and] some who have completely disappeared. There’s a very few amount of folks who have been successful to be able to rebuild their lives. But then there are still folks that are out in the streets because they don’t have the resources, don’t understand the language, don’t have any family.”
To help individuals rebuild their lives in Vietnam and Laos, MN8 works with The Ba Lô Project, a United States–based grassroots mutual aid project, and Collective Freedom, a nonprofit supporting Southeast Asian communities.
In Laos, Collective Freedom is led by deportees. Ma Yang, a Milwaukee-area resident deported in March 2025, is a point-person on the ground helping to support incoming deportees in Laos.
How are families adjusting and staying connected with loved ones who’ve been deported?
Deportation dramatically changes family dynamics and circumstances. People are using technology to stay connected, but it’s not easy. Chum talked about how community members are using messaging tools like WhatsApp and Signal to communicate with loved ones. MN8 continues to provide resources for deported people and their families.
Chum: “There is a community member who, to this day, still has never seen his son in person, because his son was born just a few days before he was deported. This was one of our original eight [from the #ReleaseMN8 campaign], and he is also a success story in Cambodia. But that’s because [of] … the resiliency in him.”
How does MN8 prepare staff and community members for ICE interactions?
MN8 conducts community training about ICE interactions to mitigate crises. MN8 hosts “Know Your Rights” training on a family and community level. Chum mentioned some basic rights people should know, such as not having to open the door to ICE unless they present a judicially-signed warrant and the right to remain silent until an attorney is present.
MN 8 also trains community members to be constitutional observers: that is, individuals who can safely document and videotape ICE interactions.
Chum: “Many of us here in Minnesota have been doing these constitutional observer training through our larger network, the Immigrant Defense Network. And so folks know that they can go out there, and they can videotape, and they can, you know, like, exercise their rights. That’s what we’re calling folks to be able to do.”
Chum also mentioned ways the organization trains community members to get involved politically through its Freedom Village program; you can learn more about that work here.
Disclosure: For this story, Sahan newsroom staff used artificial intelligence to help us quickly transcribe audio from the video livestream and compile an outline of key takeaways. A Sahan reporter and editor took these starting materials to draft the list, above. Using AI allowed us to efficiently adapt our live video interview into a story for Sahan’s website.
You can watch a recording of the livestream below:
