linkCalifornia officials have transferred an incarcerated firefighter who suffered a near-death injury on the frontlines of a major blaze this fall to US immigration, and he is now threatened with deportation to a country his family fled three decades ago.
Bounchan Keola, 39, had just two weeks left in his prison term when he was crushed by a tree while battling the destructive Zogg fire in northern California on 2 October and airlifted to a hospital. Days later, California prison officials notified federal immigration agents that his release would be coming up, and the state, records show, made arrangements to directly transfer him into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Keola could now be deported to Laos, a country he left when he was four.
“I just want to go home and give my mom and dad a hug,” Keola told the Guardian in a recent call from Ice detention. “All I know is I’m American. I’ve never thought of myself not being a citizen. I’m just asking for that one second chance.”
Keola grew up a US permanent resident, and is the latest refugee to face deportation as a result of California’s controversial policy of transferring certain foreign-born prisoners to Ice after they’ve completed their prison sentences, a practice governor Gavin Newsom has supported.
