Beua's native Cambodia holds fading but frightening memories — memories of crossing minefields and wading through rivers, past dead bodies, fleeing the murderous Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. "I fled that country to get away from Pol Pot. Now they're taking me back," Beua said.

His family has distant relatives in Cambodia's countryside, but no one knows how to contact them. He has no friends there, no job prospects, and no real plan for his life once he arrives. Once he leaves the U.S., he can never come back....What will I do?" he asked. "I'll be lost there. My parents are here, and they're getting old. They'll die without me seeing them again."

Even though the U.S. regularly deports immigrants who have committed crimes, the Cambodian situation is different. Most of them did not choose to come here, and but for U.S. policy, would not be here.

....as refugees they did not voluntarily leave their homeland. Most were babies or young children when they came to the U.S., and some believe that because they were victims of the Indochina war, the U.S. government owes them something. "These families have suffered far too much to be traumatized all over again by the very country that was supposed to give them a safe haven," said Jay Stansell, a federal public defender with extensive ties to the Cambodian community.

"I think it's unconscionable to split any of these families, particularly in the case of Southeast Asians, where the creation of refugees had so much to do with U.S. foreign policy at that time."

...."It would be like deporting survivors of Auschwitz. There's no high ground here. We don't cut off the hands of thieves in this country. As it is, some of these guys would rather have their hands cut off than live on the other side of the planet for the rest of their lives."

Until after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. had no repatriation agreement with Cambodia so there was no way to deport its citizens--there was no place that would take them. But in 2002, after a lot of pressure from the U.S., an agreement was signed.

Stansell, a frequent visitor to Cambodia, said, "A lot of these folks didn't have a large bag of tools in the U.S. to do well. They are the product of the failure of the American dream for many poor people in this country. Now they are in a country where survival is all that and much more. Some of them are doing well. Others are sad and depressed

Compassionate Conservatism? Not for Cambodians, apparently.