My Nightmares in ICE Detention’ – Cambodian Grandmother Tearfully Tells Her Story

By Sunita Sohrabji

Sithy Yi was held at the Adelanto ICE processing center for nearly two months. She is at great risk for being re-detained though she has lived in the US for 44 years, says her attorney.

Sithy Yi, center, leads the 2024 Cambodia Town parade, holding a fan of the state of California’s Stop the Hate initiative. (Photo courtesy of the family)

A Cambodian grandmother of 8 said she suffered daily nightmares while in ICE detention of being returned to the country where she was tortured and abused as a child.

”I thought about the Khmer Rouge every night. And then the officer would wake me up in the middle of the night and say ‘hey, you’re screaming. You’re yelling and screaming.’ I was frightened. I was scared that I would have to go back to that place,” said Sithy Yi, who has spent more than 44 years in the US.

Yi was arrested Jan. 8 during a routine checkin at USCIS offices, and taken to the ICE Detention Center in Adelanto, California. She was released March 2, but still remains in imminent danger of being arrested and detained again, according to her attorney Ben Loveman of the Reeves Immigration Law Group.

Still at risk

“Ms. Yi is at risk of re-detention if they decide they have secured a place to deport her to, or they can claim she violated her order of supervision again, or for no reason at all,” Loveman told ACoM. “She was released because the judge found that ICE violated the law by revoking the order of supervision without cause and without any plan to seek removal.” 

Yi is technically protected by the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) from being deported back to Cambodia, because she was tortured and abused there. But the Trump Administration has been circumventing UNCAT by deporting people to another country — usually Central America or the African continent — which could eventually deport them back to their country of birth.

Yi suffered abuse in the US at the hands of her domestic partners. She is also technically eligible for a U-visa, given to victims of violence. But Loveman indicated obtaining such a visa would be a longshot.

Sithy Yi and her sister Sithea San are shown at a refugee camp in the Philippines in 1981. (Photo courtesy of the family)

U-Visa

“The U-visa is a very long term back up plan as there are a fixed number available each year, a backlog stretching over a decade, and current adjudication trends are not positive. U-visas are 100% discretionary at the final stage of adjudication,” he said.

”We are exploring other options for more lasting protections but she remains very much at risk of re-detention,” said Loveman.

The ICE media office returned an email referring ACoM to USCIS or the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Neither agency had responded to this publication’s request for comment by press time March 26. The story will be updated if a comment on Yi’s case is issued.

ICE arrests of Asians have quadrupled over the past year. Stop AAPI Hate reported that ICE arrested 7,752 immigrants from Asian countries between January and mid-October 2025. During the same period in 2024, ICE recorded 1,998 arrests. Among those arrested in 2025, 7,069 were detained and 2,631 were ultimately deported.

Survivors of genocide

Yi and her family immigrated to the US in 1981 as refugees. Court documents indicate that she and her family were routinely abused by the Khmer Rouge, the communist regime — led by Pol Pot — which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The government is believed to have killed between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians during that time. 

The 59-year-old woman, who still bears the physical and emotional scars of her torture as a child, told ACoM in a March 25 interview that she still remembers the brutality of the regime. “They would tell us to be silent or they would kill us. So we were silent,” said Yi. She remembered a young girl, about her age at the time, who was taken to the doctor, but never returned. Nothing was further said about her.

At Adelanto, detainees who cried too much or protested were taken to mental health facilities, but when they returned, they were ghosts of their former selves, said Yi, alleging they were drugged into keeping quiet.

Appalling conditions in detention

Conditions at the Adelanto ICE processing center — which is privately run by the GEO group — were appalling, said Yi. At least 20 detainees slept in an overcrowded open room, on mattresses that were worn and thin. The temperature inside the facility was freezing cold: Yi said she slept with several layers of clothes and socks, but still shivered from the cold at night. “I have hurt my shoulder, because I could only sleep on one side.”

The walls leaked when it rained, bringing moisture and mold into the congested space, which has a maximum capacity of 1100 people, but often exceeds 1800 detainees. “The water leaked into the bunks,” said Yi, adding that the showers also did not work.

The food was awful, proclaimed Yi. “They put three things in one box and mixed it all together. It was like eating dog food,” she said, adding that she would frequently throw up. “One day the hamburger meat was very bad, it was so smelly. That day everybody got sick, not only me.”

In a lawsuit filed Jan. 26, several human rights organizations — including CHIRLA, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Public Counsel — and the law firm Wilkie Farr & Gallagher claimed that detainees at the Adelanto Center were being subject to inhumane conditions. 

Detainees at Adelanto were denied critical medical care for life-threatening conditions, inadequate nutrition, lack of basic sanitation, and prolonged solitary confinement, claimed the lawsuit.

Two detainees died at Adelanto; one died just a week after he was detained.

Yi’s family and her 6 children are all US citizens. She herself held a green card until 2011, when she was arrested on a drug conviction of possession with intent to sell. She completed her sentence, but then spent a year in California state prison after violating the terms of her parole. Her green card was subsequently revoked and she has been out of status since then.

”We all make mistakes. But if we are given a chance, they can change and live better lives,” said Sithea San, Yi’s sister, who has fought to keep her sister out of detention. San alleged that the drug conviction was based on a situation in which an abusive boyfriend coerced her into selling, saying she would not get jail time. Yi was put on probation, but later remanded to prison when she failed to show up for a probation hearing. She served 9 months in state prison.

Uncertain future

Ironically, said Yi, prison time was better than her detention at ICE. “I knew when I was going home there. At Adelanto, people had been there for 6 months, 9 months, 1 year. They did not know when they were going to leave.”

Yi, San and Reeves worked with Sen. Adam Schiff’s office — D-California — while Yi was detained. They have reached out to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office to get Yi’s drug conviction pardoned.

“I cannot describe how we all felt,” said San. “Every time I sleep, I’m thinking about my sister. I have butterflies in my stomach. I can’t eat because I don’t know her future.”

“When Sithy was detained, it reminded us all over again, going back to the Khmer Rouge period, the separation that we have, and the uncertainty for the future. And we do not know whether or not we can fight to keep her.”

“In terms of the family, it was a nightmare. They ask you to follow the law, which is exactly what Sithy did, but still she was punished,”