RI judge uses class action lawsuit to free Cambodian refugee from ICE 15%
By Katie Mulvaney30%
8/6/2026, 7:50:40 AM
Keywords: Ice, Refugee, Class Action Lawsuit, Detention, Judge, Deportation, Cambodian, Rhode Island
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Begging the Question, and Anecdotal, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 29.2% saturation with 120 hits. Analysis detected 648 faulty-reasoning hits from 411 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 24% and a BS Rank of 15% (26,021 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 85.10% of the article peer group.
A federal judge this week ordered a Cambodian refugee to be released immediately from U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
U.S.
District Judge Mary S.
McElroy on Aug. 4 ordered that Chansareth Hong, 50, a refugee who fled to the United States with his family as a child, be released after finding that authorities violated a settlement reached in a class-action lawsuit involving Cambodian refugees.
The agreement states that authorities are barred from detaining and deporting class members who have abided by their orders of supervision “unless ICE first served them with a written notice at least fourteen days prior to re-detention,” according to the Asian Law Caucus website.
McElroy faulted authorities for detaining Hong less than two weeks after he received an immigration notice.
The judge permitted ICE to take Hong to the Boston ICE Field Office only to process his release and return his property.
Hong, whom advocates say is the sole caretaker of his nonverbal 9-year-old son, was taken to the Donald W.
Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls July 22 as dozens of supporters rallied to stop his detention outside the ICE office in Warwick.
According to Hong’s supporters, he was born in Thailand after his family fled Cambodia and arrived in the United States as a baby when his family came as refugees.
The family made their way to Providence more than four decades ago.
He is a fixture in the city’s West End and Cambodian communities, where he cares for his elderly mother and young son, who is diagnosed on the Autism spectrum.
In his late teens and early 20s, Hong pleaded no contest to drug dealing and possession charges, amounting to felony convictions.
His supporters say that he pleaded to the crimes fearing substantial prison time and was not aware – or told – about the potential immigration consequences.
He has remained crime free since, state court records show.
Hong successfully challenged his deportation without a lawyer, but was overturned on appeal, advocates say.
He spent years checking in with ICE via email until this summer, when he was asked to appear in person, according to Suonriaksmay Keo, president of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island.
Officers put an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle.
Days later, he received a letter saying that he would be detained July 22, but they did not give a reason, Keo said.
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Speakers
3speakers33%attributed speech274writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageAsian Law Caucus
44 attributed words32% of attributed speech67% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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