Beldangi refugee camp in Nepal
CNN
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More than 20 refugees from Bhutan were left in unique legal spheres after being deported from the United States to the small Himalayan state they once fled.
The refugees are Lhotshampa, a Nepali-speaking ethnic minority who was exiled from Bhutan in the 1990s. Decades later in refugee camps in eastern Nepal, more than 100,000 people have legally resettled in the US, Australia, Canada and other countries under the UN-LED program launched in 2007.
Until recently, US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) data shows that the US had not deported one person to Bhutan for many years.
However, since March, more than a few Lhotshampas have been deported from the US back to Bhutan, but the country still refuses to take them, according to several dispatchers, supporters and the Nepal government. Many have returned to the same Nepali refugee camp where they dreamed of a better life abroad as children.
Ramesh Sanyasi, 24, was born in a refugee camp and moved to the United States at the age of 10 with her parents and sister. Sanyashi lives in Pennsylvania, a hub for refugees from Bhutan, and worked in an Amazon warehouse until last year when he said he was arrested for borrowing a friend’s car while outings for night.
Sanyasi was found guilty of misuse of a motor vehicle and handing false IDs to law enforcement agencies, court records show. After spending eight months in prison this April, Sanyasi said he took a one-way flight to New Delhi, India and Paro in Bhutan.
When he arrived in Bhutan, the local government took him and two other refugees to the border with India, where he paid someone a man and took him to the town of Panitanki, located on the border between India and Nepal, giving Decortees 30,000 Indian rupees (about $350) each.
Sanyasi said he and the other deportees paid someone to smuggle across the Mechi River into Nepal.
“Life here is tough. I live without ID documents. It makes everything challenging. I don’t have a proper ID and I can’t even withdraw money sent from my relatives,” Sanyasi told CNN in an interview with the Beldangi refugee camp where he is currently staying.
“My days are spent vaguely, with no clear purpose or direction,” Sanyasi said. “For now, I’m surviving with money sent from the US, but when it goes away, I don’t know what will happen.” His sister, mother and father are all still in the US.
Sanyasi and other deportees have not been documented and have come to the United States legally. Most, if not all, were convicted of crimes of varying severity, but many served full sentences before being deported. Under US law, non-citizens may lose their visa if they are convicted of a particular crime.
They currently have no documents from either the US, Bhutan or Nepal.
Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, chairman of the Nepal-based International Institute for Human Rights and Environmental Development, estimates that 30 people have been deported from the US to Bhutan so far, but at least 12 are awaiting deportation.
All refugees deported to Bhutan were exiled to India upon their arrival, Siwakoti said. Most of them are heading to Nepal, but some are still in India. Many people are hiding, he said.
Four US deporters have been ordered to be arrested and deported by the second country after being temporarily detained by the Nepal government for illegally crossing the border. However, Tikaram Dakal, director of Nepal’s immigration department, told CNN there was no place to deport these people.
“We have a dilemma. The US is unlikely to accept them, and it’s not easy to deport them to Bhutan.”
Bhutan is a small Buddhist kingdom of around 800,000 between India and Tibet in the Himalayas, and although it is often respected for its sustainable approach to tourism and national happiness indexes, it has a bleak history of repression against ethnic minorities.
In the late 1970s, the Bhutan government began cracking down on ethnic Nepali people who migrated to southern Bhutan in the 19th century, introducing a set of discriminatory policies designed to eliminate Lhotshampa.
Since 1989, the government has promoted the country’s “Bhutanization” by enforcing the dress code and banning Nepali, and has actively cracked down on those who resisted. Faced with abuse, threats and coercion, Lhotshampa fled.
For a long time, it was the foundation of us and international law, and it was international law that would not send anyone to a country that could face persecution. However, the administration of US President Donald Trump has increasingly deported people to people with significant human rights records, such as Libya and South Sudan.
“It was a “mistake among the US government” to return Lott Shampas to Bhutan, as these people do not have a country.”
“The attributes of these people, their existence and ownership of the state have been formally and legally amortized by the Royal Government of Bhutan,” Siwakoti said. “They’ve become completely stateless.”
Bhutan refused to accept Lhotshampa refugees. However, countries that have historically been barely accepted by US exiles during Trump’s presidency are now opening their doors under pressure from sanctions and tariffs.
Bhutan was originally included in a draft of the “red” list prepared by diplomats and security officials in 11 countries, published by the New York Times in March.
However, when the final list of 19 countries was released in June, targeting full or partial travel bans, Bhutan was not included.
The first deported flight from the US to Bhutan was at the end of March.
Siwakoti said he believes Bhutan has accepted the exiles to appease the United States, but he has no intention of letting them stay.
The ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions from CNN.
A US State Department spokesman said he would not discuss diplomatic communications with other governments.
“The foreign governments will make decisions regarding the status of foreign immigrants removed from the United States in accordance with their respective national laws and international obligations,” the spokesman said.
CNN was unable to contact Bhutan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comments. The Bhutan Consulate in New York did not respond to an email request from CNN.
Dakal, a Nepal government official, said Nepal could not accept refugees and is currently in discussions with the US government to come up with a solution.
The camp in Beldangi looks different from when Ashush Sabdi last lived 10 years ago. There is electricity. His father’s bamboo shed is now reinforced with metal. And the running water comes from the faucet, not from the well. Dogs, cows and chickens roam dusty roads.
Subedy never imagined he would return here in the same place where he and his family had evacuated years ago. Subedi was convicted of a felony sex crime in Ohio in 2022 and was sentenced to two years in prison before being deported to Bhutan in March, according to court records.
He is one of the deportees arrested by Nepali authorities, but was eventually released from custody after Soubedi’s father filed a habeas-protective petition with Nepal’s Supreme Court.
Without travel documents, it is unlikely that he and others will be expelled from Nepal anytime soon. In the meantime, the government has not allowed them to leave the refugee camps.
“We live in the darkness that is not on a clear path,” Subedi told CNN. “The lack of documentation and limited movement makes it nearly impossible to rebuild our lives. We feel trapped with limited options and constant anxiety.”
Subedy said he hopes to return to the United States, where his wife and three-year-old daughter still live.
“Sent back to Bhutan is not an option for us. That would probably mean imprisonment,” he said.
Back in the US, the recent deportation sent shockwaves through the Bhutan refugee community.
Tilak Nirula, a refugee and community leader in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said Bhutan refugees embraced and built their roots there.
“We’re forcibly kicked out of Bhutan and we don’t have a country to call our home, so we call it this country, the US, our home,” he said.
Nirula said he and other advocates hope that those committing crimes face justice, but he argues that deportation is not the answer.
“If someone is involved in any kind of criminal activity, we have a legitimate process,” he said.
“Segregation of family is not the solution.”
