driver to smuggle them out of Phnom Penh and across to the port of Kampong Son. With his last remaining savings, he persuaded the captain of a South Korean freighter to take them out of the hell that his homeland had become.
He did not care or know where the Inchon Star was headed. It turned out to be New York harbour, with a cargo of teak. On arrival, he had not sought to evade the authorities but had reported immediately and asked permission to stay.
Dexter spent the night before the hearing hunched over the kitchen table while his wife and daughter slept a few feet away through the wall. The hearing was his first appeal of any kind, and he wanted to give the refugee his best shot. After the statement, he turned to the response of the INS. It had been pretty harsh.
The local Almighty in any US city is the District Director, and his office is the first hurdle. The Director's colleague in charge of the file had rejected the request for asylum on the strange grounds that the Moungs should have applied to the local US Embassy or Consulate and waited in line, according to American tradition.
Dexter felt this was not too much of a problem; all US staff had fled the Cambodian capital years earlier when the Khmer Rouge stormed in.
The refusal at the first level had put the Moungs into deportation procedure. That was when Refugee Watch heard of their case and took up the cudgels.
According to procedure, a couple refused entry by the District Director's Office at the Exclusion Hearing could appeal to the next level up, an Administrative Hearing in front of an Asylum Hearing Officer.
Dexter noted that at the Exclusion Hearing, the INS's second ground for refusal had been that the Moungs did not qualify under the five necessary grounds for proving persecution: race, nationality, religion, political beliefs and/or social class. He felt he could now show that as a fervent anti-Communist and he certainly intended to advise Mr. Moung to become one immediately and as head teacher, he qualified on the last two grounds at least.
His task at the hearing on the morrow would be to plead with the Hearing Officer for a relief known as Withholding of Deportation, under Section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
In tiny print at the bottom of one of the papers was a note from someone at Refugee Watch that the Asylum Hearing Officer would be a certain Norman Ross. What he learned was interesting.
Dexter showed up at the INS building at 26 Federal Plaza over an hour before the hearing to meet his clients. He was not a big man himself, but the Moungs were smaller, and Mrs. Moung was like a tiny doll. She gazed at the world through lenses that seemed to have been cut from the bottoms of shot glass tumblers. His papers told him they were forty-eight and forty-five respectively.
Mr. Moung seemed calm and resigned. Because Cal Dexter spoke no French, Refugee Watch had provided a lady interpreter.
Dexter spent the preparation hour going over the original statement, but there was nothing to add or subtract.
The case would be heard not in a real court, but in a large office with imported chairs for the occasion. Five minutes before the hearing, they were shown in.
As he surmised, the representative of the District Director re-presented the arguments used at the Exclusion Hearing to refuse the asylum application. There was nothing to add or subtract. Behind his desk, Mr. Ross followed the arguments already before him in the file, then raised an eyebrow at the novice sent down by Honeyman Fleischer.
Behind him, Cal Dexter heard Mr. Moung mutter to his wife, "We must hope this young man can succeed, or we will be sent back to die." But he spoke in his own native language.
Dexter dealt with the DD's first point: there has been no US diplomatic or consular representation in Phnom Penh since the start of the killing fields. The nearest would have been in Bangkok, Thailand, an impossible target that the Moungs could never have realized. He
He did not care or know where the Inchon Star was headed. It turned out to be New York harbour, with a cargo of teak. On arrival, he had not sought to evade the authorities but had reported immediately and asked permission to stay.
Dexter spent the night before the hearing hunched over the kitchen table while his wife and daughter slept a few feet away through the wall. The hearing was his first appeal of any kind, and he wanted to give the refugee his best shot. After the statement, he turned to the response of the INS. It had been pretty harsh.
The local Almighty in any US city is the District Director, and his office is the first hurdle. The Director's colleague in charge of the file had rejected the request for asylum on the strange grounds that the Moungs should have applied to the local US Embassy or Consulate and waited in line, according to American tradition.
Dexter felt this was not too much of a problem; all US staff had fled the Cambodian capital years earlier when the Khmer Rouge stormed in.
The refusal at the first level had put the Moungs into deportation procedure. That was when Refugee Watch heard of their case and took up the cudgels.
According to procedure, a couple refused entry by the District Director's Office at the Exclusion Hearing could appeal to the next level up, an Administrative Hearing in front of an Asylum Hearing Officer.
Dexter noted that at the Exclusion Hearing, the INS's second ground for refusal had been that the Moungs did not qualify under the five necessary grounds for proving persecution: race, nationality, religion, political beliefs and/or social class. He felt he could now show that as a fervent anti-Communist and he certainly intended to advise Mr. Moung to become one immediately and as head teacher, he qualified on the last two grounds at least.
His task at the hearing on the morrow would be to plead with the Hearing Officer for a relief known as Withholding of Deportation, under Section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
In tiny print at the bottom of one of the papers was a note from someone at Refugee Watch that the Asylum Hearing Officer would be a certain Norman Ross. What he learned was interesting.
Dexter showed up at the INS building at 26 Federal Plaza over an hour before the hearing to meet his clients. He was not a big man himself, but the Moungs were smaller, and Mrs. Moung was like a tiny doll. She gazed at the world through lenses that seemed to have been cut from the bottoms of shot glass tumblers. His papers told him they were forty-eight and forty-five respectively.
Mr. Moung seemed calm and resigned. Because Cal Dexter spoke no French, Refugee Watch had provided a lady interpreter.
Dexter spent the preparation hour going over the original statement, but there was nothing to add or subtract.
The case would be heard not in a real court, but in a large office with imported chairs for the occasion. Five minutes before the hearing, they were shown in.
As he surmised, the representative of the District Director re-presented the arguments used at the Exclusion Hearing to refuse the asylum application. There was nothing to add or subtract. Behind his desk, Mr. Ross followed the arguments already before him in the file, then raised an eyebrow at the novice sent down by Honeyman Fleischer.
Behind him, Cal Dexter heard Mr. Moung mutter to his wife, "We must hope this young man can succeed, or we will be sent back to die." But he spoke in his own native language.
Dexter dealt with the DD's first point: there has been no US diplomatic or consular representation in Phnom Penh since the start of the killing fields. The nearest would have been in Bangkok, Thailand, an impossible target that the Moungs could never have realized. He
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