Who is Tuan?

Tuan Thanh Phan is a 43-year-old resident of Washington State. He has been married to Ngoc Phan, his childhood friend and sweetheart, since 2009. He entered the US with his family in 1991, as a nine-year-old refugee from Vietnam. In 2000, four months after his 18th birthday, he was charged with murder after firing a gun in response to a group that was assaulting him and his friends. This was his first and only arrest. Tuan followed his attorney’s advice to accept a plea deal for 25 years in prison, but was never told of the immigration consequences of his plea. He hoped to rejoin his wife and community upon the completion of his sentence in March 2025. Instead, ICE picked him up from WA Department of Correction custody on March 3, 2025 and transported him to the Northwest Ice Processing Center, in Tacoma, WA, on the basis of a 2009 deportation order Tuan had no idea existed.

What Happened Next?

ICE transferred Tuan from the Tacoma facility to the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas. On Monday, May 19, 2025 Tuan informed his wife that he had been told by ICE that he would be deported to South Africa, and later that day told he would instead be taken to South Sudan, countries with which he has no connection. On Tuesday, May 20th, Tuan and seven other men were flown out of the U.S., in blatant defiance of an existing court order issued by a federal judge that required ICE to provide notice and time for people to challenge their removal before being deported to a country not their own. Tuan and others are currently being held in Djibouti under U.S. custody in a shipping container, shackled by their feet. A federal judge has ordered they be allowed to contest their removal, but did not order their return to the U.S. Tuan’s wife is desperate to be reunited with her husband, who is trapped far from both his birth country and the country where he has spent the majority of his life.

What does Tuan need?

The family’s number one priority is to bring Tuan home. He should be returned to the U.S. and to his wife and community. A pardon would ensure that Tuan would cease to be a political pawn for the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda and Governor Ferguson has the ability to grant Tuan this pardon.

What can Washington State do to protect its residents?

Tuan and his wife would not be living this nightmare if the Washington State Department of Corrections had not handed him over to ICE upon completion of his sentence. Given ICE’s actions, which endanger the lives of the people in their custody, the Department of Corrections should issue a moratorium on cooperation with ICE, lowering the risk community members will face deportation to countries not their own where their lives are in danger.