Heng Leach didn't know what to think when her 41-year-old son, Leat Choun, was arrested two years ago at his Stockton home.
"When he got deported every mother will be surprised, right?" asked Leach.
Through a translator, Leach told ABC10 her story. Her son, born in Cambodia, was 17 when he was in a Stockton gang and was arrested several times and sent to jail. But 20 years later, no longer in trouble, employed as a warehouse factory worker, he was deported to Cambodia.
"She has four kids. Three [are] gone already, pass away, and she has only him stays," Leach said through a translator.
Leach said her two daughters died of Lupus. A second son was killed in a drive-by shooting.
One local Cambodian social worker said deportations for Southeast Asian people increased during the Obama administration, but have become more aggressive under President Trump.
Stockton has a large Southeast Asian population after immigrants fled their countries following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Poeurn Puca said her son, Samuth Mat, was sentenced 10 years ago to state prison for attempted murder. Mat was also born in Cambodia. Her fear is, once he is released in three years, he will be picked up by immigration and deported as well.
"Yeah, she been worried about that," Puca said through a translator.
Puca and Leach both say the law is the law and there is nothing they can do about it. But, they wish the law could be changed so families are not separated from the their children.
Leach says her son has two daughters, but may never be able to visit them again in the U.S.
"He miss his mom here and then his kid here," Leach said through the translator.
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