Suspicious Citizenship, Bureaucratic Coordination, and the Deportation of Cambodian American Refugees

Abstract

AbstractIndividuals of Cambodian descent who came to the United States as refugees following the Khmer Rouge, American war in Vietnam, and secret bombings in Southeast Asia (i.e., Cambodian American refugees) who were granted Lawful Permanent Residency (LPR) can be deported to Cambodia upon conviction of certain crimes, even if they lack Cambodian documentation and citizenship. This article traces how Cambodian American refugees are transformed from LPRs to illegalized deportable refugees to deportees entitled to Cambodian documentation and citizenship after arrival. This documentation process is predicated on transnational bureaucratic coordination, resulting in exclusion from the United States and inclusion in Cambodia to create new Cambodian citizens. This article argues that deportees endure a subject unmaking and remaking process that engenders suspicious citizenship: when individuals who are objects of suspicion by both the United States and Cambodian state become suspicious of these same state powers. Through their experiences with the suspicious citizenship process, deportees engage in complaint about documentary opacity, illegibility, falsification, and corruption to challenge the sociolegal normalization of their deportations and their alleged inherent belonging in Cambodia while remaining legible to the Cambodian state. [deportation, documentation, bureaucracy, citizenship, suspicion]