Vietnamese father, an Orange County resident, held for more than a month after being detained by ICE

After her husband was unexpectedly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a routine check-in, a Fountain Valley woman became a single mother overnight and worries the father of her toddler may be removed from the U.S.

Eyewitness News met Khanhi at the VietRISE office. Khanhi only wanted to share her first name and didn’t want to disclose her husband’s identity. She feared it may affect his immigration case.

Khanhi shared a recording of her daughter, Evelyn, watching her father, or Dada, sing to her in a video chat. Mom said to fall asleep, their one-year-old needs to see him, hear his voice, be in his arms-but these days, that’s not possible.

“They take naps together and that’s probably the one thing that she’s really missed out on,” Khanhi said.

That’s because Dad was in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in Adelanto.
Khanhi said she and her husband were both brought to the U.S. as children from war-torn Vietnam.

“I think my husband was five. I was just a year old-by moms who bravely jumped on a boat in the middle of the night and came to a completely foreign land,” Khanhi said.

Khanhi was able to become a U.S. citizen, but her husband was under something called an order of supervision. He had a work permit and Khanhi said for more than a decade, her husband went to quick annual check-ins at this ICE office in Santa Ana.