PHILADELPHIA—Germantown neighbors of Anou Vongbandith, a beloved Laotian community member and co-owner of Das Good Café, have been rallying for his release from detention at Moshannon Valley Correctional Center. Vongbandith—who immigrated to the U.S. as a child—is now facing deportation to Laos after being captured by ICE at his home in Lansdowne on July 28th.
Over the last few weeks, the community fightback has continued to escalate. On August 9, a rally outside of Vongbandith’s restaurant, Das Good Café, reached 500 participants. The activists also called on community members to join an effort to get Rep. Dwight Evans and Mary Gay Scanlon to visit Vongbandith at Moshannon to ensure his health and safety at the detention center.
On August 24, the fight continued with a bus load of activists—including members of Reclaim Philadelphia and Indivisible Philadelphia—protesting outside of Moshannon.
According to Germantown resident Seth Anderson Oberman, Executive Director of Reclaim Philadelphia, “the Moshannon Valley Correctional Center is a privately-run facility owned and operated by GEO Group, a for-profit corporation with a track record of human rights abuses. Activists have been working to shut it down for years. Just this week, a detainee there tragically committed suicide. That speaks volumes about Monshannon.”
The federal government pays approximately $3,400,000 every month to GEO Group to operate Monshannon—base pay of $2.8 million, with what are essentially bonuses for detainee numbers. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month that ICE detention in Pennsylvania and New Jersey was up approximately 68% in July. They also reported that the proportion of imprisoned immigrants, which ICE classifies as “non-criminal,” has risen by more than 50% since January, and that ICE has expanded from holding 1,700 people in four facilities across the two states to holding 2,850 people in seven facilities.
The facility was the focus of a September 2024 federal complaint by the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU. ACLU-PA, Juntos, Make the Road PA, New Sanctuary Movement, VietLead, and others collaborated with Temple Law students on an investigation of Monshannon, which revealed abusive conditions. Their report included immigrant detainees being deprived of medication, having generally poor living conditions, and extensive use of solitary confinement.
In his speech, Anderson Oberman highlighted the white Christian nationalism at the heart of the MAGA movement and the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants.
“Yes, it’s about white Christian nationalism. Trump and his boot-licking MAGA enablers want to disappear immigrants, refugees, Black and brown communities until their America is as white, as hateful, and as obedient as it gets.”
Anderson Oberman continued, “The attacks on immigrants are not just random cruelty; they are the tip of the spear in Trump’s fascist agenda. You start by attacking the most vulnerable. You drive racist wedges between working people, stoking fear and resentment.”
Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb also spoke at the rally, naming the historical continuity from Fugitive Slave laws to the modern anti-immigrant campaign, as well as connections between immigration detention and the wider system of, and abolitionist struggle against, mass incarceration.
“All of our fates are intertwined. I do not descend from immigrants. I descend from people whose labor was stolen by this country. But I do descend from refugees. And why is that important? Because over 160 years ago, my people in Ohio were abolitionists, and they had ten children. And when the federal government turned its back on black folk, it deputized all white men to kidnap anyone who was black.”
Rep. Rabb continued, “And my abolitionist ancestors were afraid that their ten babies would be stolen, not just by their government, but by their so-called neighbors who were deputized by their government to steal children. That’s why I’m here. Because this is not new, right?”
He went on to say, “They call them detention centers. But what I want you to understand about this is there is no difference between a state-run detention center and a for-profit detention center, because detention centers should not exist.”
The Vongbandith family and Das Good Café were the recent focus of a feature in Resolve Philadelphia, which highlighted some of the cruel circumstances of the situation. Anou Vongbandith is living with long-term health consequences of COVID-19, and his detention and possible deportation situation comes after an escalation of attacks on Southeast Asian immigrants over the last two years, focused on those with prior convictions.
Vongbandith’s own status is complicated because he took a plea deal two decades ago. When he threatened to press charges against a 21-year-old having a relationship with his then-15-year-old daughter, that 21-year-old’s family manufactured allegations of sexual impropriety against Anou and Anh with the alleged cooperation of corrupt and racist officials in Lake County, Florida.
According to the article, the now-35-year-old daughter has maintained explicitly that the allegations against her parents were false, and that she was coerced, threatened that she would be separated from the baby she was then pregnant with. The case was nearly financially ruinous for the Vongbandith family, Anh pleading no-contest and Anou separating another plea deal, to be reunited with their children. And now, what should be cause for restitution to the family and perhaps an investigation into Lake County policing has been used as a cause to further harm a family, business, and community in Philadelphia.
This is essentially one long story of a family being punished for trying to protect their child. Twenty years later, aggressive and racist policing to intimidate an immigrant family has the legacy of further harming that family, as the fascist U.S. presidential administration works to pump up deportation numbers under any pretense. Hopefully, additional focus on this case and cases like it will pressure the release of innocent people, community members who came to this country for an opportunity. The Vongbandith family has started a GoFundMe fundraiser for their legal fight against the deportation.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
