Contributed by: Admin
Vatcharee Pronsivakulchai’s case seeking political asylum in the U.S. is an unusual one.
Unlike most asylum seekers, she never intended to leave her native country – Thailand. She was brought to the U.S. by the U.S. government, extradited to face trial on drug trafficking charges which were later dismissed. Dumped by the DEA: Thai Woman Could Face Death if Deported After Cooperating with US Agents
By Kari Lydersen
Infoshop News
January 2, 2007
Chicago -- Vatcharee Pronsivakulchai’s case seeking political asylum in the U.S. is an unusual one.
Unlike most asylum seekers, she never intended to leave her native country – Thailand. She was brought to the U.S. by the U.S. government, extradited to face trial on drug trafficking charges which were later dismissed.
While in the U.S. she worked as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), writing letters to drug dealers she had met during seven months imprisonment in Thailand. Now, with the charges dropped, U.S. officials want to send her back to Thailand. But returning as a known informant, she says, would put her life in danger.
Pronsivakulchai was arrested in Bangkok in 2000 on a warrant for drug trafficking issued by U.S. officials. She spent seven months in the Lad Yao prison in Bangkok awaiting extradition to the U.S. During that time, she met gang members involved in drug dealing and other types of crime.
And, according to an August 2006 ruling in her favor by Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge William Bauer, “she witnessed rampant corruption, such as open narcotics trafficking and guards forcing inmates to pay for their food or for places to sleep. The prison guards also beat her.”
In 2001, at her first court appearance in the U.S., a DEA agent asked Pronsivakulchai to assist in their investigation of Thai drug traffickers.
Though Pronsivakulchai maintained her innocence throughout the case, she thought assisting the DEA would help her.
“She was adamant she wouldn’t plead guilty because she was not guilty,” said her attorney Claudia Valenzuela, of the Chicago-based rights and legal assistance organization Heartland Alliance.
Under the DEA’s direction, Pronsivakulchai wrote letters to the gang members she’d met in prison and gang members from her hometown of Ranong. Residents commonly suspected who were drug dealers because of their real estate and flashy possessions, and Pronsivakulchai’s sister who still lived in the town would help her identify likely gang members and send their addresses.
“At the direction of a DEA agent, her letters falsely stated that she had won her case, she was out of jail, and she was interested in buying narcotics,” explained Bauer in his ruling.
One of the gang members Pronsivakulchai wrote to was Siang Yoksap, a member of the Kon Nakorn gang who had previously tried to sell Pronsivakulchai “protection.” Yoksap was killed several weeks after her letter was sent. After that a gang member known as “Cheet” went to her sister’s home numerous times looking for Pronsivakulchai. She thinks the gang knew about her letter and was looking for revenge.
In January 2004, the government offered Pronsivakulchai a plea deal which she refused, maintaining she is innocent. Then the day her case was supposed to go to trial, the government moved to dismiss the case. So after three and a half years in detention, Pronsivakulchai was turned over to immigration agents in the Department of Homeland Security and incarcerated in the immigration detention facility in DuPage County, Illinois.
If Pronsivakulchai is deported, she will likely first go back to Lad Yao prison, then she may be released. Given the violent record of the gangs and their well-known connections with corrupt police and prison guards, she strongly believes she will be killed in or out of prison. She considers her sister to also be in danger. So she applied for political asylum in the U.S.
But on May 2004, an immigration judge ruled Pronsivakulchai was ineligible for asylum because of the suspicion she was a drug trafficker in Thailand. “As evidence, the government submitted a partial and uncertified translation of a Thai warrant,” wrote Bauer. The warrant contains only her first name; Pronsivakulchai said she had never seen it before. At a “merits hearing” of her asylum claim in August 2004, she tried to present evidence countering the charge that she was involved in drug trafficking; but the immigration judge did not allow her to tell her side of the story.
So she was basically caught in a catch 22: no criminal charges were ever pursued against her, but since the case was dropped she never got the chance to make her case rebutting the charges, which were still used by the immigration judge to deny her asylum.
Immigration officials had also argued she was not eligible for asylum on the administrative grounds that she had not entered the country with a valid visa. But, argued Bauer, “considering that she arrived in the United States through extradition processes from a Thai prison, we do not see how the fact that she lacked a proper visa would be a bar to her asylum application.”
Pronsivakulchai’s defenders see this as a case of her being essentially chewed up and spit out by the U.S.: wrongfully targeted and then used by one U.S. government agency – the DEA – only to be abandoned by that agency and turned over to another – Homeland Security -- after she was no longer useful.
“Remarkably, at oral argument the government’s counsel conceded that
Pronsivakulchai was helpful but not helpful enough,” wrote Bauer. “Her assistance did not prove as fruitful as the DEA and prosecutors had hoped. Now, Pronsivakulchai’s reward for helping the DEA is to send her back to the Thai prison, where the gang members and drug traffickers she informed on still reside.”
Valenzuela said she is pursuing claims for asylum, “withholding of removal,” and, if those fail, protection under the international Convention Against Torture (CAT).
Asylum carries the lowest burden of proof – the applicant must essentially show there is a one in 10 chance of them being harmed by the government or other parties in their home country. To be granted “withholding of removal,” they must show a 50 percent chance of harm. To qualify for protection under CAT, one must prove it is likely the applicant would be tortured by the government or at the government’s acquiescence. Given the connections between gangs and police in Thailand and other factors, a CAT case could be made for Pronsivakulchai.
“She has become endangered by her cooperation with authorities in the U.S., and now our government is trying to return her to Thailand after really having her believing she would get protection,” said Valenzuela. “She’s scared out of her mind. From the start I believed the evidence against her was so flimsy. It’s amazing she’s now spent over five years in the U.S. incarcerated and there’s never been any concrete evidence of wrongdoing by her.”
Bauer’s August ruling vacated the immigration judge’s decision to deny her asylum and granted her case a review. Valenzuela said she is encouraged by Bauer’s decision and Pronsivakulchai’s prospects in a review. Meanwhile, Pronsivakulchai is still being detained in prison-like conditions.
“It’s been a long fight for her,” said Valenzuela. “This is five years of her life, and she’s had medical issues while detained. As a human being and an attorney, I sometimes can’t even find the words to describe the moral distaste of the way she was handled.”
---------
Kari Lydersen is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the
Washington Post, In These Times, LiP Magazine, Clamor, and The New Standard.
Additional articles by Kari Lydersen at Infoshop News:
Marching on McDonald’s: Coalition of Immokalee Workers Campaign Continues
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2006lydersen_ciworkers
Still Soaked: Corporate Settlements Don’t Do Much for Residents of
Devastated St. Bernard Parish
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2006lydersen_srbernardparish
Elvira Arellano: Immigrant Activist’s Standoff with DHS Continues
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2006elvira_arellano
The Injustice and Injury of Child Marriage
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2006childmarriage
Infoshop News is one of the more popular independent news sites, online
since 1997 and now with over 24,000 articles and editorials in its
archives. Infoshop News is a news aggregator, independent news
syndicate, forum, and publisher of original investigative journalism.
###
Comments (0)
Infoshop News
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2007pronsivakulchai_case