Oops yesto samma chai nagarya bhae huntho.
Four of 12 confirmed cases of Bhutanese refugees arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Pennsylvania have resulted in deportation, reportedly to Bhutan.
Thursday morning, names of four men from Allegheny, Dauphin and Lancaster counties detained by ICE in March were no longer in the agency’s Online Detainee Locator System. Around noon, Bhutanese community leader Tilak Niroula spoke with the men, who had just landed in New Delhi, India. According to Niroula, those men were informed they would soon be sent to Paro, Bhutan.
“I hope the government of Bhutan will treat them with respect, with dignity, and offer them citizenship,” Niroula said.
Bhutan has not historically recognized members of the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa refugees as citizens and has previously denied attempts by the United States to deport people back to the country. The return of these refugees from the U.S. to Bhutan could reflect a shift in diplomatic agreements between the countries.
Each of the deported men were born in Bhutan, according to ICE records. The Lhotshampa people are from the nation’s south, driven out of the country in a government-backed ethnic cleansing through the 1980s and 1990s.
Bhutan has a consulate in New York, but it has not responded to three emails or five phone calls since Tuesday, including questions about how the deported men will be treated upon arrival.
“ICE does not comment on current or future operations due to operational security,” said Jason Koonce, a department public affairs officer.
Through a decadelong resettlement effort led by the U.S. from 2006 to 2016, there are now more than 70,000 Bhutanese refugees in Pennsylvania, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro. Around 40,000 of them live in Central Pennsylvania, making Dauphin and surrounding counties home to one of the largest populations of Lhotshampa people in the country. Many, like Niroula, have become naturalized citizens.
