Justin Douglas calls on Trump and ICE to stop deporting Bhutanese refugees from Pennsylvania

A press release issued by Justin Douglas’ office stated that at least one of the Bhutanese refugees recently deported from Pennsylvania has already been arrested by Nepalese authorities while trying to visit family members living in refugee camps. 

Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas and members of Central Pennsylvania’s Bhutanese Nepali community spoke out against the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for arresting and deporting members of the community during Wednesday’s commissioner’s meeting.    

Pennsylvania is home to roughly 70,000 Bhutanese Nepali refugees who escaped an ethnic cleansing campaign in Bhutan during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and were granted green card status after spending decades living in Nepali refugee camps. 

“ I encourage everyone to reflect on the immense hardship this community has endured over the past 35 years.” Douglas said during the meeting.  

“In the last three weeks, I’ve spoken with many members who shared powerful stories of spending over two decades in refugee camps under harsh conditions after being forced from the only home they had ever known. After years of displacement, they finally found a place to call home right here in Pennsylvania.” 

Douglas then called on President Donald Trump’s administration to immediately stop deportations for those going back to Bhutan. Some of those deported had been arrested for minor crimes they committed while living in the US. 

“I’m calling on ICE and the Trump administration to immediately pause all deportations to Bhutan until the safety and security of those being deported can be clearly and independently verified, we have a moral and legal obligation not to return refugees to a country that once ethnically cleansed them,” Douglas said.

According to Shobha Gurung, a professor of sociology at Southern Utah University, the Bhutanese government launched their “One Country, One Nation” campaign evicting Nepali speaking Bhutanese people from their homes after they helped clearing jungles in southern Bhutan in the 1980s. 

These Nepali migrants comprised 45% of Bhutan’s population at the time and were forcefully evicted from their homes and spent decades living in Nepali refugee camps. 

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama granted Bhutanese refugees protected status in the 2000s, and since then Central Pennsylvania has become one their largest communities in the country with over 40,000 Bhutanese residents living in the region.

In total, there were 18 members of the Bhutanese Nepali community deported, six of whom lived in Pennsylvania. Of those six, three members lived in Dauphin County, two were from Allegheny County, and one was from Lancaster County. 

A press release issued by Douglas’ office stated that after arriving in Bhutan, those individuals were transported to India, near the Nepalese border, and at least four of those individuals were arrested by Nepalese authorities while trying to visit family members living in refugee camps. 

One of the individuals arrested was a 33-year-old Bhutanese refugee from Dauphin County. 

“ We are concerned very much at this time about those who are deported, and again expelled from Bhutan, and now they are languishing somewhere in places where no security, no identity, no documents,” Narad Adhikari, a member of the local Bhutanese Nepali community, told reporters following the meeting. 

“ We’d like to appeal to the government of the United States to take it seriously with the government of Bhutan. Once they accepted them as Bhutanese, they cannot throw them out like that, making them displaced. We are very concerned about those people who are thrown out of the country.”