PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — At the Das Good Cafe on Chelten Avenue in Germantown, Anh Vongbandith is usually on the catering side, but after her husband Anou was detained by ICE last weekend, she had to split her time between catering and the cafe’s kitchen.
“He jokes around that, you know, we met when I went to the Bellevue Hotel, I was the manager there, and we didn’t date until I went to the Omni Hotel, but he tells everybody I was his boss then and I’m still his boss now,” Anh said.
That was in Florida, where the Vongbandiths first dropped roots, and where Anou first encountered ICE as a Laotian refugee.
“He left Laos at 3 years old,” Anh said. “He’s been in the U.S. since he was 5.”
Anou’s been under supervision by ICE since 2010, when he accepted a plea deal on a felony child abuse charge in Florida. Anh says it was bad legal advice after their underage daughter was coerced by the family of a 21-year-old boyfriend to frame Anou as her abuser.
When ICE came into the picture after the plea, Anou accepted his deportation order, given that Laos wasn’t accepting deportees from the U.S. at the time. That changed when Donald Trump was reelected this year.
Anou was detained on his way to work last Saturday.
“I got banging on my door about 15 minutes later, and I’m like, ‘Cable guy’s early!’ I go to the door, and there’s these ICE agents at my door,” Anh recalled.
Now, Anh wants to get the word out about Anou’s case in hopes of getting more powerful help.
“I need people to come together and make him famous. Put him in the limelight. He’s an innocent man who got the wrong advice… He’s not a criminal. Even if it’s on paper, he’s not a bad person,” she said.
A lawyer is now on his case, and they’re appealing to Florida to reopen his criminal case in hopes of it getting thrown out, so he has more legal standing in his immigration case.
A GoFundMe has also raised more than $40,000 to help with legal fees.
“My goal is to keep him here because once, if he’s on that plane, he’ll never return… ever,” Anh said.