NEW: Kao Saelee worked as an incarcerated firefighter in California.

But when his release date came, the state partnered with ICE and transferred him to detention. He now faces deportation to Laos, a country his family fled when he was two years old. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/22/california-inmate-firefighter-ice-deportation

Kao, now 41, has been imprisoned since he was a teenager. Even though he completed his sentence and fought wildfires, @GavinNewsom + CDCR handed him over to ICE.

“I paid my debt to society, and I think I should have a chance to be with my family," Kao told me from ICE jail.

When his release date came on August 6, Kao's sister was waiting outside the prison to take him home for the first time in two decades. Instead, guards handed Kao over to a private security contractor for ICE who shackled his hands, waist and legs, put him in a van and drove off.

ICE first jailed him in Fresno, then flew him to Texas + then to Pine Prairie ICE jail in Louisiana, a facility that has had 60+ Covid cases.

“When they said Louisiana, that was kind of scary to me,” Kao told me in a call from detention. “I had never been this far from home.”

He's stuck indefinitely in ICE, waiting for a hearing about his deportation to a country his family fled as refugees. He called me from Covid lockdown:

“What is the point of sending somebody back to a country where they don’t have no family? I'd be frightened out of my mind.”

Kao planned to swim in a lake + barbecue with family on his first day out. Now he talks to his sister in 10-min phone calls.

“If I do get deported, it would be like the first time I’m walking into prison – scared and just lost. It'd be like getting sentenced again, for life.”

Kao had an extremely difficult childhood in CA + wound up in jail.

“His story is similar to that of a lot of Southeast Asian refugee youth who got resettled in neighborhoods in California that had really high rates of violence, poverty and incarceration” - @anoop_alc of @aaaj_alc

Kao told me he was bullied by white classmates. His parents were farmers in Laos + struggled to make ends meet in CA. He had to take care of three younger siblings. He struggled with drug addiction starting at the age of ten and was kicked out of his home at age 18, left homeless

At 18, he participated in a robbery + was jailed. He didn't understand the courts, had rotating public defenders + ultimately signed a plea in 1998 for multiple felonies.

25-year sentence for a refugee teen.

“I just wanted to get it over with, so I took whatever they gave me”

California prison system eventually sent him to southern CA far from his family, who could no longer visit. He continued to struggle with drug addiction during his sentence, but toward the end of his time, got an opportunity he loved: to be a firefighter on the wildfire frontline

He was grateful for the pay. Instead of 8-cents per hour in other prison jobs, he made $1 / hr on fires. The food was better. But mostly it was rewarding: “It’s hard work, but worth it to see the look on people’s faces when they know we're trying to save their land + their homes”

Despite his firefighting service and completion of a 25-yr sentence, the state volunteered to coordinate with ICE. Kao is most upset about the impact on his family: “It’s like my family is doing this time with me. They didn’t do anything wrong. They already paid for my mistakes.”

Kao's story is not unique. Under the direction of @GavinNewsom, California routinely transfers people to ICE at the end of their prison sentences – undocumented ppl, longtime Californians with green cards, refugees. Anyone ICE wants to deport, CDCR facilitates. That's the policy.

This is one of the most common ways that people end up in ICE detention in California. In the first three months of Covid crisis, CA prisons + jails were the #1 source of new ICE detentions - 94 people (59% of new ICE arrests) in one northern CA region, according to @centrolegal

From January to May, California prisons transferred 500+ people into ICE custody, according to @aaaj_alc.

This is not required by law + CA volunteers to partner with ICE. This is despite the state's "sanctuary law" that is supposed to restrict this kind of collaboration.

For days, I've asked @GavinNewsom @CAgovernor for comment on the decision to send an incarcerated firefighter and refugee to ICE, to directly transfer him to Trump's deportation machine, to indefinitely separate him from his family.

The gov's office has refused to comment.

Newsom, who vowed in his inaugural speech to make California a "sanctuary for all," has defended his collaboration with ICE. Asked about it in early September, he said it was "appropriate" and that "it's been done historically."