erowe1
08-28-2012, 10:44 AM
In the spring of 2000, a bicycle cop in Arlington, Virginia stopped 19-year-old Lundy Khoy and asked her if she was carrying any drugs. "Having been taught to trust the police," Khoy writes of the experience, "I answered honestly." She told the cop that she had seven tabs of ecstasy, and that she planned to sell them to pay back some money she took from her mom.
In Virginia, possesion with intent to sell is an aggrevated felony.
"On the advice of my lawyer and feeling that a trial would increase my family's suffering and embarrassment," Khoy writes, "I pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in jail."
Khoy served three months and was released for good behavior. She moved back in with her parents, got a job, and enrolled in community college. "I began to accept, forgive, and believe in myself," writes Khoy, who is now 31. She also completed four years of supervised probation without missing appointments or failing drug tests.
If Lundy Khoy had been born in the United States--instead of in a refugee camp in Thailand for Cambodians fleeing Pol Pot's ethnic cleansing campaign--she would be free and clear. But Lundy Khoy didn't come here until she was 12 months old. She's not a citizen, only a "legal permanent resident."
Because of her immigration status and the mistake she made when she was 19, Lundy Khoy could soon be separated from her mother and father and her American-born brother and sister, and deported from the only country she's ever known.
...
Click here for the rest:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/28/lundy-khoy-barely-escaped-pol-pots-purge#fold
In Virginia, possesion with intent to sell is an aggrevated felony.
"On the advice of my lawyer and feeling that a trial would increase my family's suffering and embarrassment," Khoy writes, "I pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in jail."
Khoy served three months and was released for good behavior. She moved back in with her parents, got a job, and enrolled in community college. "I began to accept, forgive, and believe in myself," writes Khoy, who is now 31. She also completed four years of supervised probation without missing appointments or failing drug tests.
If Lundy Khoy had been born in the United States--instead of in a refugee camp in Thailand for Cambodians fleeing Pol Pot's ethnic cleansing campaign--she would be free and clear. But Lundy Khoy didn't come here until she was 12 months old. She's not a citizen, only a "legal permanent resident."
Because of her immigration status and the mistake she made when she was 19, Lundy Khoy could soon be separated from her mother and father and her American-born brother and sister, and deported from the only country she's ever known.
...
Click here for the rest:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/28/lundy-khoy-barely-escaped-pol-pots-purge#fold