The United States granted Socheas Phong refugee status two years ago, but President Trump’s policies have kept his wife and children in Cambodia with little hope of being reunited.
Latin American migration patterns have shifted southward
Border crossings have fallen to record lows as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown ramps up.
CINCINNATI, Ohio – Socheas Fong lives alone in this small rented house just off West 8th Street, and he wants to explain why he’s here.
His English is improving, but his accent is thick. He is worried that this will cause confusion, so he wants you to take a look. He wants you to understand.
At the kitchen table, Fon opens a folder and pulls out a document. He said this was supporting documentation for an application he filled out years ago to come to the United States as a refugee.
He pointed to a document that appeared to be an official document from the Cambodian government. This is an arrest warrant issued against him by police in 2017 for his pro-democracy activities in Cambodia’s outlawed opposition party.
“They call us traitors,” says Fong.
Being called a traitor is not something to be taken lightly in Cambodia. It can land a person in jail or an early grave. When Mr. Phuong learned of the warrant, he fled across the border to Thailand, leaving behind his wife and four children.
He says he had no other choice. He had already seen the government dissolve his political party, send friends and colleagues to prison, and place the party’s co-founder under house arrest.
In January, a former lawmaker was shot dead while waiting for a bus near a noodle stand.
Mr. Fong came to the United States as a refugee two years ago, but the State Department conducted an extensive background check, security screening and interview and found there was sufficient reason to fear for his safety. He settled in Cincinnati with the help of Catholic Charities.
Immediately after arriving, Mr. Fong, 52, began working with the government and Catholic Charities to bring his wife and two youngest children here. That was always the plan, he says. To be reunited with his family.
But in January, President Donald Trump shut down the program that brought Fong to the United States and the program that allowed his family to follow him. President Trump said at the time that the United States no longer had room for refugees. He believed they were a burden on local communities and had a negative impact on the economy.
Von wants you to know that he is grateful to be here. But when I asked him about being separated from his family, his voice trailed off. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes. His children are growing up without him, he says.
After eight years, he is to them an image on a computer screen and a voice on the phone.
He fears that he will become a memory.
“Who can help me?” he asks. “That breaks my heart.”
Due to his father’s death, he spent his childhood as a refugee.
As dinner of fish stew and rice simmers on the stove, Fon invites you to follow him upstairs. He opened the door to find a room with a desk, a small bed, and family photos on the walls.
“This is my father,” he said, pointing to a faded portrait of a young man who bore a passing resemblance to Fong.
His father, Tai Phong, was a Cambodian activist in the 1970s who advocated for human rights and democratic reform as wars and rebellions raged across Southeast Asia.
When the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and began rounding up political opponents, Typhon did what his son would do decades later. He went into hiding in Thailand.
However, the Khmer Rouge informed Huong’s father that if he did not return, they would kill his wife and young son.
Fung doesn’t know how old he was at the time, maybe four or five, but he knows what happened when his father came home. Years later, his mother told him that Khmer Rouge fighters had beaten his father to death as she watched. He became one of the approximately 2 million victims of the genocide that turned Cambodia into a “killing field”.
His father’s killers then destroyed every trace they could find, including personal belongings, memorabilia, and anything bearing his name or likeness. It was as if ending his life wasn’t enough. They wanted to erase his existence.
Fon noticed your eyes drift back to the photo of your father. He answers the next question before you ask.
He says the photo that now hangs on his wall survived because his mother, Tour Pomme, hid it under a kitchen cabinet. If the Khmer Rouge had found out, she might have been killed too, but she didn’t give up, he says.
This photo was taken when she and Phong left their home and moved to Thailand after their father’s death, fearing that the Khmer Rouge would one day return. They did not return to Cambodia for 10 years.
This photo traveled with Phong again several years later, when he fled Cambodia in 2017, first to Thailand and then to the United States.
As he explains this to you, Fon pauses, as if for the first time remembering all the years he spent away from home.
“I have been a refugee all my life,” he says.
First a political activist, then a wanted man
Back at the kitchen table, I flip through the pages of Phong’s file and find many photos from his days as a political activist in Cambodia.
In one photo, he is standing in the back of a white pickup truck with a bullhorn in front of him and a blue, red and white Cambodian flag flying in the driver’s side window. In another photo, he kneels on a concrete floor with about a dozen villagers, helping them plan for the next election.
Other photos are even more eerie. The footage also shows police questioning Mr. Fong on the street and men in plain clothes lurking around the house.
“Please spy on my house,” Fong wrote above the photo.
They offer a glimpse into Phong’s life in Cambodia before Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government dissolved the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and began harassing and imprisoning its leaders and supporters.
As a young man, Phong saw the party as the nation’s best hope for building a pluralistic, democratic Cambodia, a goal that had eluded decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. In time, he believed that his country could overcome the horror that claimed his father’s life.
Fong said he still believes that, sitting on the other side of the world looking at photos of men and women like himself who are no longer able to speak publicly in their own countries. “I will never stop fighting for freedom,” he says.
These days, he gives TV and radio interviews, posts comments on social media, and does everything he can to fight from afar to unite a political movement that Cambodia’s leaders are still trying to crush.
You picked up a photo of Fon and an older man standing on the side of the road. They wear matching shirts and hats emblazoned with the CNRP’s Japanese flag symbol.
Fong explains that the man in the photo was a party leader and leader. After fleeing to Thailand, Phuong said she received a phone call from a friend offering encouragement. He assured Mr. Fong that their efforts had made a difference despite the government’s repression.
“Please,” his friend told him. “Keep trying.”
Fong promised, but he had just become a refugee for the second time in his life. The future of the country wasn’t the only thing on his mind.
“I need a family.”
Fong picked up his phone from the table and started searching for photos. Once he finds it, he smiles and hands you the phone.
These are his children. Two boys and two girls, aged 14 to 27. They wear jeans, tracksuits, and T-shirts with colorful logos. They might be on their way to high school class or walking across a college campus.
They may now be driving down West Eighth Street in Cincinnati, headed for an Indian restaurant or a Latin market not far from Fong’s home.
When he calls home, he asks what they are talking about when the family is together in Cambodia and Phong is here in the kitchen. He said he is telling them what fathers around the world are telling their children.
Please do your best at school.
Think about your future.
Try not to get into trouble.
He says the hardest part, the part that brings tears to his eyes, is when they ask if he’s okay and if he’s taking care of himself.
“They know I live alone,” he says.
Mr. Fong doesn’t want them to worry. He always tells them, “I’m fine.” His job in food service at Good Samaritan Hospital keeps him busy. His political activities continue to be involved in the struggle in Cambodia.
However, Phong is not doing well. not much. He is away from his family, wife and children. This way of life has become familiar, but familiarity doesn’t change what you know in your heart to be true. That means his family isn’t all there.
You hand the phone back to him. He places it on the table, next to the papers and photos of his refugee file.
“I need a family,” he says.
This is what he wants you to understand. That’s why he opened the door to you today. He’s a refugee, yes, just like the Germans and Italians who came to this area 100 years ago, and in some cases for the same reasons that brought Fong here two years ago.
But he is more than just a refugee. He is a husband and father and tries to keep his family together. He is a son trying to honor his father’s work.
Before leaving, Phuong walks into another room and emerges with a krama, a traditional scarf worn by men, women, and children throughout Cambodia. The fabric has green, purple, and white stripes and square patterns. he hands it to you.
You tell him that the scarf is beautiful, but you can’t accept it. He presses it into your hand anyway. He explains that krama is a symbol of Cambodian identity. For him, it’s a reminder of his place in the world.
For you, it’s a gift. A reminder that everyone has a story worth sharing.
You tell him you understand. You thank him and place the scarf over your arm. Then I step out on the porch, soak up the bright afternoon sun, and head home to my family, just like I do every day.
Dan Horn is an investigative reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network.
