At 9:36 a.m. last Monday, Thao Vo got a phone call.
After nearly a year in an ankle monitor and four months of uncertainty he would soon be deported, the federal immigration case against him was closed.
Vo has lived in Vermont since the age of 6 when his family arrived from Vietnam nearly two decades ago. But in early December, Vo got a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement: he was scheduled to be deported on Feb. 7.
The deportation case against Vo stemmed from a plea agreement he took after he was arrested with marijuana in 2016. He pleaded guilty to carrying more than one but less than two ounces of marijuana, for which he served no prison time. His lawyer at the time advised him he wouldn’t face any immigration repercussions.
But a year and a half later, an ICE officer in an unmarked car pulled him over, according to Vo. Vo was cited on an immigration law violation because of the conviction, held in a detention facility for months, and removal proceedings were started against him.
Deportation of Vietnamese nationals has historically been rare because of an agreement between the United States and Vietnamese governments. But numbers have ticked up recently as the Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stance on immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Vo worried about leaving his family — Desiree, who he married in late December, and his two young stepdaughters. He also worried for himself. He has little family still living in Vietnam, and hasn’t been back since he was a child.
“It was hard for me because, I don’t know Vietnamese, I don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” Vo said in a recent phone interview. “And you can’t fit a life that you lived here for almost 19 to 20 years in a 45-pound luggage.”
The last four months have been a whirlwind for the 26-year-old.
Vo worked with Vermont Legal Aid to get his marijuana conviction in Chittenden County dismissed. The criminal case was dismissed at the end of December, clearing Vo’s record of the charge that precipitated deportation proceedings.
But the immigration case still needed to be addressed — a step complicated by the partial shutdown of the federal government, which shuttered immigration courts and cut back the number of ICE personnel on duty for 35 days in December and January.
“With the government shut down, there’s less desk officers working,” he said. “So even your requests, your letters, your grievance, you can write it all you want — it’s very delayed and kicked back.”
With the courts closed, Vo’s attorney had to go directly to ICE to avoid his Feb. 6 deportation order. The case has been moving through final stages over the last several months. His ankle monitor was removed on Mar. 29 — exactly a year after Vo was released from a New Hampshire immigration detention facility.
Then finally, last week, he got word that the removal proceedings against him were officially closed.
A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a question concerning the status of Vo’s case Friday. But Vo’s immigration attorney, Erin Jacobsen, confirmed that the removal proceedings against him have closed, and he is back to his green card status.
“His case is just such a good example of the waste of resources and the disruption to families that we’re seeing because of the ramped up interior enforcement,” said Jacobsen, who heads an immigration assistance program at Vermont Law School’s South Royalton Legal Clinic.
Now, with Vo’s green card restored, he can go back to work. He’s beginning the process to apply for U.S. citizenship, studying for the citizenship test with the help of an app and his two stepdaughters.
For Desiree Vo, the resolution is a huge relief. With proceedings open, she felt like the family couldn’t make plans even a short time in the future.
“People would be like, do you want to plan to do this? And I’m like, I don’t even know where we’re going to be in two weeks,” she said.
Vo had what he hopes will be his final appointment at ICE’s office in St. Albans on recent sunny day. Afterwards, he and his family had a bite at Taco Bell, then they went down to the lake front to the enjoy the warmth — which they took in with some ice cream.
