{"id":72831,"date":"2025-07-10T21:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/jul\/10\/bhutan-refugees-trump-america"},"modified":"2025-07-10T21:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:00:45","slug":"bhutan-tried-to-erase-us-now-trumps-america-is-helping-lok-darjee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72831","title":{"rendered":"Bhutan tried to erase us. Now, Trump\u2019s America is helping | Lok Darjee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The administration has deported over two dozen refugees back to the very nation that tried to erase us. Democrats must speak up<\/p>\n

In mid-March 2025, I sat quietly in the back of a small, crowded room at the Asian Refugees United center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, surrounded by members of the Bhutanese<\/a> diaspora. The silence was heavy, thick with fear and uncertainty. This modest office, once a vibrant hub for refugee youth, cultural celebrations, and literary competitions, had become an impromptu crisis center, where community leaders scrambled to make sense of the Trump administration<\/a>\u2019s escalating <\/a>immigration crackdown on Bhutanese refugees<\/a> across the country.<\/p>\n

Robin Gurung, the organization\u2019s executive director, briefly outlined our legal rights. Another organizer then read aloud the names of those detained, awaiting deportation \u2013 or worse, already deported to Bhutan, the very country that once expelled them.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The administration has deported over two dozen refugees back to the very nation that tried to erase us. Democrats must speak upIn mid-March 2025, I sat quietly in the back of a small, crowded room at the Asian Refugees United center in Harrisburg, Penn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4840,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1786,1007,241,1150,61,554,1083,47,631,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bhutan","category-democrats","category-nepal","category-republicans","category-south-and-central-asia","category-trump-administration","category-us-immigration","category-us-news","category-us-politics","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72832,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72831\/revisions\/72832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}