Yang was born in Thailand and was a legal permanent US resident until she pleaded guilty to marijuana-related charges and served more than 2 years in prison.
Unfuckingbelievable. 2 years in prison for weed, what are we even doing here.
Possession of any amount for a first-time offense is a misdemeanor punishable by 6 months imprisonment and up to $1,000 in fines
Possession of any amount of marijuana (subsequent offense) is a felony punishable by 3.5 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
The cultivation of 4 plants or fewer cannabis plants is a felony punishable by 3.5 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
The cultivation of between 4 and 20 cannabis plants is a felony punishable by 6 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
Some of the most punitive laws I’ve seen.
That story has a bit more info about the marijuana related charges. Not a ton, but it does have:
"A longtime Milwaukee resident, Yang worked as a nail technician and a receptionist at nail salons before the COVID-19 pandemic. She was earning a living for her children, who range in age from 6 to 22. Her partner, Bub, is disabled: he has had two brain surgeries, is partially paralyzed and suffers from memory loss.
During the pandemic, the family moved into a house that prosecutors say was part of a marijuana trafficking operation.
Yang was among 26 people indicted in a sweeping federal case in 2020. It alleged Yang helped count and package cash that was mailed to marijuana suppliers in California. Prosecutors found bags of cash taped between pages of magazines, according to a complaint."
So it was a trafficking case. Weed was being shipped from Cali, where it’s legal, to Wisconsin, where it’s not, and they were mailing back cash to pay for the weed. To me it just sounds like she was trying to take care of her family and disabled partner during a difficult time.
Also, “Marijuana-related charges” is never going to mean “beating someone half dead because they smoked your weed.” That’s just battery. Even guessing that that is code for some violent crime makes you sound like a right wing nutjob making huge mental leaps to justify how horribly this woman was treated by the govt as a good thing.
Some stupid side-involvement without, as I guess, any power or major profits. Besides being a nail-person, SHE was their mail-person. Uninformed of probable presecution, she discovered it only when they all got caught. Stupid, dumb thing to do, but I can see why she could agree to that and why she kinda forgot to double-check the legality of this thing herself.
I mean she was trafficking weed. Even in Canada where it’s legal this would still be illegal.
I absolutely, categorically deny in the strongest terms being a “right wing nutjob”. There are basically no such people on Lemmy.
I am simply making a point that we don’t know what the “marijuana-related charge” is. Deporting a person to a country they’ve never been is never going to be a good thing.
Better article with more detail.
During the pandemic, the family moved into a house that prosecutors say was part of a marijuana trafficking operation.
Yang was among 26 people indicted in a sweeping federal case in 2020. It alleged Yang helped count and package cash that was mailed to marijuana suppliers in California. Prosecutors found bags of cash taped between pages of magazines, according to a complaint.
She took a plea deal and served 2 1/2 years in prison. She said her attorney incorrectly told her the plea deal would not affect her immigration status as a green card holder. But her legal permanent residency was revoked.
At the end of her sentence, Yang was transferred to an ICE detention facility in Minnesota. There, at the advice of another attorney, she signed a document agreeing that a deportation order would be entered against her in exchange for being released from detention.
Despite agreeing to be deported, she and her attorney believed it wouldn’t happen, since only a small handful of people are deported to Laos each year
Sounds like she got involved with something she shouldn’t have as a green card holder, and then took some crap legal advice that didn’t account for an aggressive change in administration/policy.
Yeah with 5 kids and a disabled husband, this is a case where the inadequacy of welfare made this woman into a criminal.
ICE is breaking up poor families, with the pretense they did a victim less crime.
Crap legal advice from lawyers is far too common and it sucks. I grew up in a gang area, so I know several people who’ve gotten public defenders. Every one I’ve heard of has been overworked to the point of just suggesting they try to plea deal out because mounting an actual defense would take too much time away from the other cases on their docket.
The general reaction I get to that is 'oh well, why should I care about a gang member’s civil rights" and it’s infuriating that we’re so happy to assume guilt before it’s proven in court.
Their journalism beats your baseless allusions of violence by every conceivable metric.
Anyone wondering why they are so needlessly cruel - that’s the point. It’s a demonstration of malign power for both the oppressed and the oppressors so that each knows their place.
One of my friends was complaining that Biden’s border policy is a disaster and I told her that it’s actually very easy to “fix” the border, it’s just incompatible with stated US values:
Ritual torture.
Now they have to expand the target population because Biden’s deportation numbers were better.
Uh she was involved in a drug trafficking operation. She is not some innocent person. Being a PR this was very stupid on her part.
Oh, she’s also diabetic and running out of insulin & heart medication. And the Lao government is holding her things so she has no money or identification or anything. Neat.
Canada Europe, Australia and other free democracies need to be offering this woman (and her family) and people like her refugee status. She is clearly being discriminated against and needlessly and cruelly punished.
Why do you say that? If you want a push to help someone then you should focus on what would actually help
Maybe I miss something, but why Laos of all places? I didn’t get what connects her to that particular counrty, could it be her ethnicity as a person who was actually born in another country? Why not Tai? Like, I miss a lot of questions to ask before that, why she’s even deported in the first place, but the seemingly random choice of the country is what surprised me and the article’s writer the most.
Doesn’t really work with a lot of Asian people. Needs an additional eye diagram.
Maybe I miss something, but why Laos of all places?
Seems like Trump just randomly picked a nation that Hmong live in.
The modern Hmong reside mainly in Southwestern China and Mainland Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar.
I’m far from an expert and only know what I know from a short story.
But the Hmong people are from Laos but many of them fled to Thailand as refugees I think it was from some military action.
I’m not sure, but it might have been the US military. I read somewhere that Laos had the most bombs dropped on it or something.
Again, this info could be off, so please double check if you want to learn more, but this might get you started.
IIRC, the CIA convinced the Hmong to fight for them against the communists in southeast Asia, and promised to take care of them if it all went south. Well, we all know how the Vietnam war went, and while a government that was very unhappy with the Hmong for siding with the CIA was taking over, the CIA basically threw deuces and vanished on them. So shocking and uncharacteristic of the US to betray an ally, I know. So, the Hmong fled to Thailand and begged the US for aid. I’m sure we’ll get the duality of tankie responses (nobody was treating them badly but if they were they deserved it), but the gist is that they were seeking refuge. A few years later, the US granted it. Now, bear in mind, originally they’d been told they were going to be able to have their own farms and fuck off to nowhere and mind their own business. Uncle Sam basically dumped them in Merced, California, patted himself on the back, and walked away. There was a lot of drama about it for a while, because the locals got real upset that this entire population just showed up basically overnight and seemed to resist integration, and the Hmong were upset because they just wanted to fuck off and mind their own farms. Fifty years later, though, the Hmong are a pretty big deal (in a good way) in the community, so that’s cool.
It’s a testament to Kurdish military prowess that the same story with different details didn’t happen to them
Oof, what we did in Vietnam to the Vietnamese people was already unbelievably evil and unforgivable, but we even betrayed people that risked everything to help us? Wow.
My heart breaks for all the people who died in that terrible war: the innocent Vietnamese who merely wanted to be free to self determine and also the young boys that the US sent to their death for absolutely no good reason.
America secretly carpet bombed Laos when Laos wasn’t even at war.
They dropped 2 MILLION tons of bombs onto it and somehow kept it a secret from the American people for multiple years. One of Henry Kissingers ideas.
One of Henry Kissingers ideas.
Yep. He was an absolute monster. This quote by Anthony Bourdain always comes to mind when he gets brought up:
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”
That’s so crazy, the US did all this dark stuff and no one knows or really cares.
I don’t blame people for not caring as there is so much, “US is the shining beacon of freedom and justice in the world” propaganda.
But it’s just crazy how these things happen and a few years later the world acts like it didn’t.
Asian kind of eyes? Laos is an Asian city? There you go, send her to Laos, it’s all the same
(Severe /s if that wasn’t clear)
