Alan Phetsadakone has been checking in with ICE every year since his felony conviction in 1997 without any issues.
SEATTLE — A West Seattle family is fighting to bring their father home after he was taken into custody by ICE.
Alan Phetsadakone’s wife, Cheryl Eugenio, said Phetsadakone went in for his regular check-in with immigration officials at the Tukwila office in August. She waited for him outside the building but he never came out.
“After that I checked my phone and there was a message,” Eugenio said. “He just said they were taking him into Tacoma.”
Phetsadakone is currently detained at the Northwest ICE processing Center in Tacoma.
Mo Hamoudi is a partner with Stritmatter Law and Phetsadakone’s attorney. The Seattle Clemency Project reached out and Hamoudi took on Alan’s case as co-counsel, free.
Phetsadakone who arrived as a refugee from Laos when he was a baby, grew up in Seattle. Eugenio said he has no ties or family members in Laos.
“When he was a teenager, around 17 and 18, he made a mistake, he was involved in a check running scheme,” Hamoudi explained. “He got caught, he cooperated, he helped, he took responsibility, and when he did that he plead guilty to a federal felony, and in doing that he had to have advice about his status here as a refugee, he got bad advice.”
Hamoudi said Alan’s criminal defense attorney said his guilty plea wouldn’t mean deportation during his hearing in 1996.
“We have here is not a certainty of deportation if there is a conviction, nor necessarily a certainty of extended confinement,” Phetsadakone’s attorney can be heard in a recording of that hearing.
Hamoudi is arguing, had Alan known about the future consequences of potential deportation, he never would have pleaded guilty.
After nearly 25 years of yearly check-ins with out issue, Hamoudi said he believes the feds are acting on one thing:
“Fear. The country is going through a change, and people are afraid that letting a person like Alan stay here is going to do something that’s gonna stop what’s happening as to the change in the country,” he said.
In the meantime, Cheryl is hoping to prove, Alan was never the worst of the worst that the Trump administration promised to lock up.
“It’s so unfair, that we have to go through this. This is where his life is,” Eugenio said. “He paid for his mistake. Lot of people make mistakes. why not give him that second chance to live his life with his family?”
Federal Judge Jamal Whitehead heard Phetsadakone’s Temporary Restraining Order case Friday morning. Judge Whitehead said he needed more time to make a decision. If he grants the TRO, Phetsadakone would at least temporarily be protected from immediate deportation.
