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About 45 years ago, Kham Lamb watched her kids experience snow for the first time after the family arrived in the U.S. as refugees. Now, when it’s warm, she goes mushroom hunting with her son, At Chandee.

“He loves to cook,” she said. “He loves to share with people.”

Many of Chandee’s friends and family call him Ricky. Over the years, he’s gotten more and more of them into foraging, too. His older brother, Toon Chandee, says his ever-growing camping trips are one example of his ability to connect with people. “That’s something I admire,” he said.

Family members say they count on Ricky Chandee, 52, to be an instigator of fun, a source of calm and a helper. Recently, the Trump administration described him differently, as one of the “Worst of the Worst” immigrants arrested by immigration officers in Minnesota.

 from Jan. 27, the U.S. Department of Homeland security lists Chandee among 16 people arrested that weekend in Minnesota, where DHS said it was “protect[ing] Minnesotans from criminal illegal aliens.”   

Chandee was detained last month based on a conviction from 1992. His immigration lawyer, Linus Chan, said his case raises an important question: “At

what point are we supposed to continue to say that if you've committed a crime, you're always a criminal?”

‘He proved to me how much he's changed’

Chandee was born in Laos. He and his family fled to a refugee camp in Thailand when he was a toddler and came to the U.S. in 1980, when he was six years old.

In 1992, when he was 18, Chandee pled guilty to second-degree assault, or assault with a dangerous weapon. His lawyer said he spent about three years in state prison. Then, in 1995, the federal government handed him a deportation order. But Laos refused to take him back.

“Many, many, many people from Laos were told this,” Chan said. In the 1990s, countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam had limited resources and strained relationships with the U.S. following wars decades earlier.

Chandee and others were allowed to remain in the U.S. and work legally under what’s called an order of supervision. He had to check in with immigration authorities once or twice a year.

While Chandee’s legal status remained frozen in this in-between place, his life moved on. He took his work permit and education he’d begun while in prison and got an engineering job with the city of Minneapolis. He’s been an engineering technician in public works for 27 years.

“He was looking at one of the maps that he was working on, and he's like, ‘I did this drawing back in ‘99. This is my original picture.’ He was very proud of it,” said Tina Huynh-Chandee, Ricky Chandee’s wife.

When they became friends in 2014, she said he was upfront about his past conviction.

“He proved to me how much he's changed,” she said.

They were married in 2016. He has an adult son, Alex, from a previous marriage who is in the Air Force. Until his detention, Chandee lived in Brooklyn Park with his wife and his sister-in-law’s family. 

“He is an outstanding husband, brother-in-law and uncle to my kids,” said Lucy Huynh, Chandee’s sister-in-law. “He’s taught my son how to play baseball. He's helped my daughter with school projects, things that he doesn't have to do.”

Being married to a U.S. citizen may have opened a door for Ricky Chandee to get a green card. His deportation order, though, has blocked the way. The couple has tried, unsuccessfully, to get it overturned.

So, about once a year, Chandee does his check-in. The most recent was in December, not long after the Trump administration began what it called “Operation Metro Surge.”

“We thought, if they wanted him, they would pick him up then, but they said, ‘No, you're good until June,’” Huynh-Chandee said. “Didn't know that they were going to come that Saturday morning to pick him up.”

On Jan. 24 around 8:15 a.m., the family said four vehicles pulled up to the house. A group of federal agents banged on the door, waking Lucy Huynh and her husband. Huynh’s husband answered the door and she alerted Chandee.   

Her children heard the commotion and ran downstairs. “The kids were able to give him hugs and such — my son did — and then we watched them take Ricky out to the car,” she said.

Huynh-Chandee said her husband complied with the agents’ orders and left with them.

“That was the last time I saw him,” she said. “The kids were crying. They see it on the news, but they didn't think it was going to happen to somebody in our household.”

That same morning, people all over the country and the world were watching a different scene, where Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis.

By the following day, Chandee was in detention in El Paso, Texas.  

While his family waited for news, the White House posted a series of photos of people it called the “Worst of the Worst” 

. Chandee was one of them, but the post misidentified him. His photo was shared alongside an incorrect name, country of origin and charge.

Huynh’s daughter saw the post and was upset. “That’s her uncle,” she said. A couple days later, her daughter texted her asking to be picked up early from school because of all the talk about ICE. “She goes, ‘I can't handle this right now.’”

By the middle of that week, Tina Huynh-Chandee said her husband called briefly from the ICE processing center in El Paso. She spent the three-minute conversation reading off information he needed, she said, before the call dropped.

Chandee has since moved out of the processing center into general population, according to the family, and can now call daily. But they remain worried. They say ICE lost Chandee’s medication for about a week. He has diabetes. MPR News reached out to ICE about this and has not received a comment.  

Chandee’s lawyer, Linus Chan, asked a federal court in Texas to block Chandee’s deportation. The motion was rejected Friday.

“The law has been very hard for people in this situation, and there are just not that many legal options available based on the strict reading of the law,” he said. “In the past, this has not been as much of an issue.” He said the federal government has used more of its legal discretion in the past to make room for cases like Chandee’s.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport more immigrants who have committed crimes. Many Republicans and some Democrats have echoed him. As of Jan. 25, about 26 percent of people in immigration detention had a criminal conviction, according to 

 compiled by Syracuse University. It’s not clear how many of those convictions are decades old, like Chandee’s.

There has also been a shift in Laos. Under pressure from the Trump administration, the country’s government has agreed to accept more people deported from the U.S. Organizations that advocate for Southeast Asian immigrants in Minnesota report deportations to Laos 

If Chandee were deported to Laos, Chan said he would have limited rights there.

“He will be detained as soon as he arrives,” he said. “He would need a sponsor in order for him to get released. Even after he gets released, he would need to continue to check-in and be monitored by the Laos government.”

He’d be trading one in-between status for another, but this time he would be without his family and his career.

Chandee’s mother, Kham Lamb, said he does not know anyone in Laos.

“My parents gone, my brother, sister's gone,” she said. “We need him here, please.”

There is still a chance the court will grant a petition to release Chandee from detention. As the family waits for an answer, they are 

 for legal costs and for resources in case he is deported.  

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At “Ricky” Chandee pled guilty to assault when he was 18 and served a prison sentence in the early 1990s. Since his release, he has worked for the city of Minneapolis for nearly 30 years. His family says he is not a threat to public safety, despite the Trump administration’s portrayal of him. 

Minnesota man faces deportation to Laos for a crime he committed more than 30 years ago

A man with a hiking backpack poses over a lake

Courtesy of Tina Huynh-Chandee

Two men smile and hold up four large fish, with more fish laid on the ground

Minnesota man faces deportation to Laos for a crime he committed more than 30 years ago

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