Yang was born in Thailand and was a legal permanent US resident until she pleaded guilty to marijuana-related charges and served more than 2 years in prison.
Unfuckingbelievable. 2 years in prison for weed, what are we even doing here.
Imagine if she’d have pleaded not guilty…
Believe it or not, straight to jail
The history of the War on Some Drugs has been terrible. People like Leary who had a 10 year sentence for…possession of two roaches. And that was a relatively wealthy white guy…
she also overstayed her VISA too.
Possession of any amount for a first-time offense is a misdemeanor punishable by 6 months imprisonment and up to $1,000 in fines
Possession of any amount of marijuana (subsequent offense) is a felony punishable by 3.5 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
The cultivation of 4 plants or fewer cannabis plants is a felony punishable by 3.5 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
The cultivation of between 4 and 20 cannabis plants is a felony punishable by 6 years imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines
Some of the most punitive laws I’ve seen.
Would’ve already been jailed multiple times if I was American. Think I’ve been told to put it away at least 10 times here in NL
Republican child diddlers get less
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“Marijuana-related charges” could mean anything though. It could mean simple possession of cannabis or it could mean beating someone half dead because they stole the last weed brownie.
That story has a bit more info about the marijuana related charges. Not a ton, but it does have:
"A longtime Milwaukee resident, Yang worked as a nail technician and a receptionist at nail salons before the COVID-19 pandemic. She was earning a living for her children, who range in age from 6 to 22. Her partner, Bub, is disabled: he has had two brain surgeries, is partially paralyzed and suffers from memory loss.
During the pandemic, the family moved into a house that prosecutors say was part of a marijuana trafficking operation.
Yang was among 26 people indicted in a sweeping federal case in 2020. It alleged Yang helped count and package cash that was mailed to marijuana suppliers in California. Prosecutors found bags of cash taped between pages of magazines, according to a complaint."
So it was a trafficking case. Weed was being shipped from Cali, where it’s legal, to Wisconsin, where it’s not, and they were mailing back cash to pay for the weed. To me it just sounds like she was trying to take care of her family and disabled partner during a difficult time.
Also, “Marijuana-related charges” is never going to mean “beating someone half dead because they smoked your weed.” That’s just battery. Even guessing that that is code for some violent crime makes you sound like a right wing nutjob making huge mental leaps to justify how horribly this woman was treated by the govt as a good thing.
Some stupid side-involvement without, as I guess, any power or major profits. Besides being a nail-person, SHE was their mail-person. Uninformed of probable presecution, she discovered it only when they all got caught. Stupid, dumb thing to do, but I can see why she could agree to that and why she kinda forgot to double-check the legality of this thing herself.
I absolutely, categorically deny in the strongest terms being a “right wing nutjob”. There are basically no such people on Lemmy.
I am simply making a point that we don’t know what the “marijuana-related charge” is. Deporting a person to a country they’ve never been is never going to be a good thing.
I didn’t say you were a right wing nutjob, I said that making such ridiculous leaps in logic make you sound like one. I agree, this is Lemmy, so the chances of you actually being full right wing are pretty slim. Though seeing the term “Marijuana-related charges” and being like, well, it could be simple possession, or they could’ve beaten someone half to death for smoking their weed is the type of leap that nutjobs make.
I am simply making a point that we don’t know what the “marijuana-related charge” is.
If you really wanted to know more about the charges, you could’ve googled for 2 seconds and found the same article I did. Instead you just put out into the world that, well, maybe she beat someone half to death. Again, that’s battery.
I am simply making a point that we don’t know what the “marijuana-related charge” is.
Is basically the same line of thinking conspiracy theorists use when they say something ridiculous and then say they’re “just asking questions.” Especially if you’re using that line as a defense against pushback when you suggest that those marijuana related charges may have involved violence.
I’m not saying all this to attack you. I’m saying it so that next time you come across an article that you feel lacks some critical information, maybe you’ll look into it further rather than just suggest that the person said article is about is actually some sort of monster.
Okay, fair criticism
I mean she was trafficking weed. Even in Canada where it’s legal this would still be illegal.
Ok? I never said she committed no crime. In fact, I specifically did say it was a trafficking case. And she served 2 1/2 years in prison for it, thereby paying her debt to society. So what’s your point?
Better article with more detail.
During the pandemic, the family moved into a house that prosecutors say was part of a marijuana trafficking operation.
Yang was among 26 people indicted in a sweeping federal case in 2020. It alleged Yang helped count and package cash that was mailed to marijuana suppliers in California. Prosecutors found bags of cash taped between pages of magazines, according to a complaint.
She took a plea deal and served 2 1/2 years in prison. She said her attorney incorrectly told her the plea deal would not affect her immigration status as a green card holder. But her legal permanent residency was revoked.
At the end of her sentence, Yang was transferred to an ICE detention facility in Minnesota. There, at the advice of another attorney, she signed a document agreeing that a deportation order would be entered against her in exchange for being released from detention.
Despite agreeing to be deported, she and her attorney believed it wouldn’t happen, since only a small handful of people are deported to Laos each year
Sounds like she got involved with something she shouldn’t have as a green card holder, and then took some crap legal advice that didn’t account for an aggressive change in administration/policy.
Yeah with 5 kids and a disabled husband, this is a case where the inadequacy of welfare made this woman into a criminal.
ICE is breaking up poor families, with the pretense they did a victim less crime.
Regardless of the circumstances - if you’re accepted & given the right to stay, you should stay. Even as a criminal.
There shouldn’t be take-backsies on that.
She was not a citizen and unless your a citizen you don’t have any right to be in a country. PR status can be taken away.
They need to take care of their citizens dude. She has 5 kids that need their mom, and her husband. Don’t forget this was for weed, if she was bookkeeping for an illegal dispensary up here she would at worst lose her CPA.
Their journalism beats your baseless allusions of violence by every conceivable metric.
I am not accusing anyone of anything. I’m saying we don’t know what the “marijuana-related charge” is based just on this article.
Oh, she’s also diabetic and running out of insulin & heart medication. And the Lao government is holding her things so she has no money or identification or anything. Neat.
Hopefully Laos deports her back to the US.
Where she won’t be able to afford the medications anyway!
Just randomly deport people to a country. What are they trump.
Canada Europe, Australia and other free democracies need to be offering this woman (and her family) and people like her refugee status. She is clearly being discriminated against and needlessly and cruelly punished.
Many thousands of refugees fleeing persecution are facing discrimination and cruelty too, and have been for years.
Free democracies in wealthy nations need to step up better to look after ALL refugees.
Pretty sure they would get a lot of skilled worker knowledge if they did so
It’s never left me remembering how much hate i saw Kossovo refugees getting in the UK in the 90s. People fleeing a massacre, mass graves, land mines, blitzkrieg, rape as a weapon of war - only to be treated like scum by the average Joe.
Refugee wouldn’t apply here but they could still help/take her in
What a pedantic thing to focus on
Why do you say that? If you want a push to help someone then you should focus on what would actually help
What would actually help would be making those outside the US aware how fucked up this whole situation is, rather than nitpicking over what word you think we should use when referring to them.
We are aware. America has been breaking international human rights law for decades.
Maybe I miss something, but why Laos of all places? I didn’t get what connects her to that particular counrty, could it be her ethnicity as a person who was actually born in another country? Why not Tai? Like, I miss a lot of questions to ask before that, why she’s even deported in the first place, but the seemingly random choice of the country is what surprised me and the article’s writer the most.
Easy answer:
Doesn’t really work with a lot of Asian people. Needs an additional eye diagram.
I’m far from an expert and only know what I know from a short story.
But the Hmong people are from Laos but many of them fled to Thailand as refugees I think it was from some military action.
I’m not sure, but it might have been the US military. I read somewhere that Laos had the most bombs dropped on it or something.
Again, this info could be off, so please double check if you want to learn more, but this might get you started.
IIRC, the CIA convinced the Hmong to fight for them against the communists in southeast Asia, and promised to take care of them if it all went south. Well, we all know how the Vietnam war went, and while a government that was very unhappy with the Hmong for siding with the CIA was taking over, the CIA basically threw deuces and vanished on them. So shocking and uncharacteristic of the US to betray an ally, I know. So, the Hmong fled to Thailand and begged the US for aid. I’m sure we’ll get the duality of tankie responses (nobody was treating them badly but if they were they deserved it), but the gist is that they were seeking refuge. A few years later, the US granted it. Now, bear in mind, originally they’d been told they were going to be able to have their own farms and fuck off to nowhere and mind their own business. Uncle Sam basically dumped them in Merced, California, patted himself on the back, and walked away. There was a lot of drama about it for a while, because the locals got real upset that this entire population just showed up basically overnight and seemed to resist integration, and the Hmong were upset because they just wanted to fuck off and mind their own farms. Fifty years later, though, the Hmong are a pretty big deal (in a good way) in the community, so that’s cool.
Oof, what we did in Vietnam to the Vietnamese people was already unbelievably evil and unforgivable, but we even betrayed people that risked everything to help us? Wow.
My heart breaks for all the people who died in that terrible war: the innocent Vietnamese who merely wanted to be free to self determine and also the young boys that the US sent to their death for absolutely no good reason.
You missed the carpet bombing part.
It’s a testament to Kurdish military prowess that the same story with different details didn’t happen to them
America secretly carpet bombed Laos when Laos wasn’t even at war.
They dropped 2 MILLION tons of bombs onto it and somehow kept it a secret from the American people for multiple years. One of Henry Kissingers ideas.
One of Henry Kissingers ideas.
Yep. He was an absolute monster. This quote by Anthony Bourdain always comes to mind when he gets brought up:
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”
Instead he got given a Nobel Peace Prize and went on to help more people commit genocides in other countries. An incredibly evil person.
The fact that Bourdain died young and Kissinger lived to be 100 proves that the world is not a just place.
That’s so crazy, the US did all this dark stuff and no one knows or really cares.
I don’t blame people for not caring as there is so much, “US is the shining beacon of freedom and justice in the world” propaganda.
But it’s just crazy how these things happen and a few years later the world acts like it didn’t.
Everyone I know who is my age knows about it. If you have heard of “Manufacturing Consent” that’s one of the things Noam Chomsky writes about in that book.
The carpet bombing of Laos and covert support of Pol Pot is also one of the many reasons we all celebrated when Henry Kissinger died.
I think Americans probably know less about it than people outside the US. The US does a lot of awful stuff. We do care, it’s just the US is so powerful there’s nothing the rest of us can do about any of it.
Maybe I miss something, but why Laos of all places?
Seems like Trump just randomly picked a nation that Hmong live in.
The modern Hmong reside mainly in Southwestern China and Mainland Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar.
Weren’t those the people from that one Clint Eastwood film about the car?
Racism.
Because he wasn’t sure if she is Chinese or Japanese
Hank Hill’s Dad would have known where she is from.
Trump thinks Asians are lousy, so they must all come from Laos.
Asian kind of eyes? Laos is an Asian city? There you go, send her to Laos, it’s all the same
(Severe /s if that wasn’t clear)
You’re being sarcastic, but I bet this is the logic. Terrifying watching what is happening in the USA at the minute.
TIL the nazi president and his rubberstamp king invoked The ALIEN ENEMIES ACT of 1798, which I also just learned “is intended to be invoked when the country is at war or if a foreign nation has invaded the U.S. or has issued threats that they will.”
The country is at war, Nazis have invaded the white house.
War implies actual resistance, not just online complaints.
Lmao, okay. I can guarantee you, in their minds they’re at war with us. Wake the fuck up and smell the smoke.
Let’s get all the first through third generation German Americans into Freedom camps just to be safe. Maybe have a few in Death Valley for the natives that don’t appreciate their Land gifts in Oklahoma that are selfishly hogging mineral rich lands. /S
Oh brother…
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Just speechless really.
Why? What’s surprising about Nazis doing Nazi things?
Right? What part of “mass deportations” do we not understand when voting for Krasnov?
Welp, it worked we got em. The nation is now safe from this Midwestern mom who smoked pot once. Good job everyone
Where did Wisconsin’s electoral college votes go to? I’m guessing they wanted this.
Wisconsin is one of the swingiest swing states. Wisconsin’s electoral votes went to Trump, Biden and Trump in the last 3 presidential elections by extremely narrow margins (just a percent or two each time) and they’ve had governors races decided by hundreds of votes in recent years. Every election in Wisconsin is hard to predict other than the hyper-local ones, especially after the court-ordered redistricting away from the Republican-drawn super-gerrymandered districts
Electoral votes do not represent a state’s population
She must have been a weed dealer, not a small time one, to receive a 2-year prison sentence. If she supports the GOP, oh well, there’s the door.
She had been associated with a weed dealer. She moved to a house with a weed dealer neighbour, who gave her work in handling incoming cash. So, she was a part of a weed-dealing group, but apparently was not aware that it deals weed.
I’m scanning the article for the part where she or members of her family voted for trump
