I am Sereyrath “One” Van, currently incarcerated at Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail in the Northeast U.S.
My experiences with ICE reveal a crucial truth: mass incarceration is embedded in American culture, and immigrant detention is simply an extension of the prison system.
I’ve been in jails, prisons and ICE detention centers, and they all feel the same. Every day, I see barbed wire, miss important milestones and face the devastating possibility of never seeing my loved ones again if I am deported.
After serving five years for a nonviolent drug conviction, I was grateful for my early release from state prison last October. However, after my ICE transfer to Moshannon Valley Processing Center on the day I should have celebrated my freedom, the looming threat of my deportation terrified me. Fortunately, ICE released me in January after 87 days in its custody. Returning to Philadelphia, I vowed not to take my freedom for granted. I complied with parole and ICE supervision, focusing on giving back to my community — especially through supporting Southeast Asians facing deportation.
But my time with my loved ones was cut short. On August 15, ICE re-detained me, disregarding the support of over 1,000 people, including city council members and a Pennsylvania state senator.
Being back in Moshannon Valley Processing Center again feels like déjà vu, only worse. The jail has become more violent, and despite my case being reopened in immigration court, ICE insists on incarcerating me. It claims I am a danger to society because of my past nonviolent conviction. Growing up as a refugee kid in Southwest Philadelphia, I was surrounded by police violence and systemic incarceration. It is ironic, then, that ICE labels me as a danger.
On August 15, ICE re-detained me, disregarding the support of over 1,000 people, including city council members and a Pennsylvania state senator.
I was born in a Thai refugee camp after my parents escaped the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia in the late 1970s. My family still struggles to heal from the trauma of war. Yet, healing seems impossible in a country where gun violence, poverty, racism and the intensified policing of immigrants replicate wartime conditions. Over the past 40 years, it feels like the U.S. has relentlessly re-traumatized my family through an unjust immigration system. My incarceration impacts not only me but also my five siblings, 12 nieces and nephews, and countless friends who suffer alongside me.
Immigration jails are driven by corporate greed. The federal government pays the GEO Group, a private corporation running many prisons, $3.4 million monthly to operate Moshannon Valley Processing Center. Each year, Congress increases funding for ICE, and each year, the number of people held in immigration jails rises. From Bush to Obama, ICE expanded into a punishing system with little oversight. Trump made it even more brutal, and Biden has followed the same path. Despite calls for “common sense” solutions by Vice President Kamala Harris, there is nothing sensible about an immigration system that profits corporations while traumatizing noncitizens.
The U.S. has relentlessly re-traumatized my family through an unjust immigration system.
Now we are headed into a second presidential term under Donald Trump, who promises to run the “largest deportation operation in American history.” Trump seems sure to follow through with these promises, as this week he picked extremists Stephen Miller and Tom Homan — who pushed the “family separation” policies that tore immigrant children away from their parents during his first administration — to shape immigration policies in his second administration.
Hearing this news, I am filled with fear, knowing that these people will empower the firestorm of ICE’s oppression even more by acting on their racist, xenophobic rhetoric blaming immigrants for our country’s problems, even though these accusations are not based in fact. However, I am reminded that I have already been experiencing the oppression of ICE under the Biden administration. This country may have a different border czar, but it won’t be changing the goals of ICE employees who have remained hell-bent on deporting immigrants and refugees by any means necessary, no matter who is president.
Regardless of my time served and individual circumstances, ICE continues to treat me as a disposable criminal. The system applies a one-size-fits-all approach, disregarding my early release, my 40-year residency in the U.S. and the extensive support I have from my community.
I already had an uphill battle fighting for my freedom under the Biden administration, and I know it will only become more difficult under Trump.
I have seen many noncitizens — desperate for release from Moshannon Valley Processing Center’s horrific conditions — sign their rights away and accept their deportation. Only 16 percent of detained noncitizens have legal representation, and most come from poor Black and Brown communities, where they may not understand English or our legal system. How can they possibly defend themselves against government lawyers with unlimited resources in courts with government-appointed judges? ICE’s system of immigration jails does nothing but impede justice, disregard our humanity and violate our rights.
I take full responsibility for my past actions associated with my drug conviction and understand the harm my choices have caused. But being isolated from my family over something I have already served time for is deeply cruel. I remain hopeful, but I am deeply afraid of the new administration. I already had an uphill battle fighting for my freedom under the Biden administration, and I know it will only become more difficult under Trump. I constantly ask myself why I’m being incarcerated again when all I want is to turn my life around. I deserve a chance to serve my community. I simply ask for me and others jailed by ICE to be treated as human beings — Biden, free us now!
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