02-04-2025
Dauphin County Commissioner calls on Trump administration to end deportations to Bhutan
In this handout photo provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two federal law enforcement officers coordinate with other officials on the ground during an enhanced immigration enforcement operation on February 4, 2025 near Washington, D.C. (Photo by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images)
Dauphin County Board Chairman Justin Douglas says the Trump administration Wednesday should end the deportation of Bhutanese residents.
Since President Donald Trump took office, Dauphin County officials say as many as 18 Bhutanese residents who legally immigrated to the U.S. as refugees may have been deported back to the country where many fled ethnic cleansing. Alyson Wert, a spokesperson for Douglas, said three lived in the county.
'We owe it to these individuals and to the promise we've made as a nation committed to protecting the vulnerable,' Douglas said at a Dauphin County Commission meeting on Wednesday. 'We have a moral and legal obligation not to return refugees to a country that once ethnically cleansed them. … Some may say this is political, but for me it's about people. It's about my constituents. '
As of April 1, at least four of the deportees appear to have been arrested in Nepal while attempting to contact family members in refugee camps there. Fourteen were unaccounted for, at this point. Douglas said at least nine other Bhutanese Pennsylvanians have been detained.
Central Pennsylvania is home to the largest population of Bhutanese Nepali refugees in the country. In the last decades, tens of thousands of them were welcomed into the U.S. as refugees following ethnic cleansing of Nepalese-speaking minorities in Bhutan. Many settled around Harrisburg which has a Bhutanese Nepali population estimated in the tens of thousands.
All of the Bhutanese residents detained or deported by ICE appear to be men, and at least some had criminal charges that Douglas and family members describe as 'minor.'
He said the impact of the arrests has reverberated across the Bhutanese community.
'The community right now is living in uncertainty, unsure of who might be targeted next,' Douglas said. 'Yes, these individuals may have minor criminal histories, which enabled ICE to attempt to remove them from the United States. But that is no reason to rip them away from their wives, children, brothers, sisters and community.'
The detentions have caught the attention of Pennsylvania lawmakers at both the state and federal level.
Democratic state lawmakers representing Dauphin County in Harrisburg have spoken out against the arrests. On March 29, U.S. Congressman Scott Perry (R-Dauphin), a supporter of Trump's hardline immigration policies generally, said on social media that he met with Bhutanese community members in Harrisburg.
A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for more details on the deportations and arrests.
