A Hmong American woman who has lived in Wisconsin since she was 8 months old was deported to Laos last week related to a guilty plea in 2020 for her role in a federal cannabis case, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Ma Yang, 37, was a legal permanent U.S. resident who had served 2 1/2 years in prison for her role in the trafficking operation.
A part of the plea deal, Yang said, was that she could keep her green card. At the end of her sentence, Yang was transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Minnesota and, on the advice of an attorney, signed a document agreeing that a deportation order would be entered against her in exchange for being released from detention. Yang and her attorney believed the deportation would not occur because in the last fiscal year, the U.S. did not deport anyone to Laos, according to federal data.
After being released from detention, Yang attended her regular check-ins with ICE but last month got a call from ICE asking her to meet with them – nine months before her scheduled date – and was ultimately detained, sent to a jail in Indiana, then to a jail in Illinois two weeks later, then deported.
Yang is not allowed to return to the U.S.
