A Case For Plastic Homes

Can Lego-like modules ease homelessness?

Josie Huang is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.

Published June 23, 2023 5:00 AM

A man out of focus on the bottom right of frame points to a gray, vertically rectangular structure with a small stair case, slabs, and an open door.

Architect Charles Wee shows off the a single unit that makes up the walls of LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.

(

Brian Feinzimer

for LAist

)

Topline:

As L.A. deals with a homelessness crisis, officials have been looking to unconventional ways to quickly house people transitioning out of encampments. One new building technology using plastic is starting to gain traction because of quick-to-assemble modular units that can be fit onto odd-shaped parcels.

The demand for housing: The unhoused population in L.A. County has climbed to 69,000. But there's not enough permanent housing, creating an urgent demand for interim housing.

The backstory: LifeArk's CEO Charles Wee is an architect who started out wanting to build floatable housing for people living in places prone to flooding like the Amazon. But then he met a homelessness services provider Paul Cho who convinced Wee that his plastic housing modules could make a dent in L.A.'s homeless crisis.

Questions about plastic as housing: Stick-built homes are the convention so plastic housing is a hard sell for some. Others are already perturbed by the ubiquity of plastic. Keep reading for LifeArk's case for why their product makes sense, even with earthquakes and fires.

When it comes to plastic, architect Charles Wee has heard it all. Awful for the environment. Flammable. Flimsy.

But as Southern California tries to pull itself out of a homelessness crisis, Wee is bullish on plastic being part of the fix.

His company LifeArk is drawing attention for making 8-by-8-foot modules molded from 30% post-consumer recycled plastic that fit together like Legos – if the pieces were made out of a high-density polymer.

A gray house-like structure with a triangular roof. A tree with yellow flowers sticks out from the left of frame. And a red plant sticks out from the right of frame.

“Plastic is such a surprising material,” said Wee, who designed skyscrapers in Asia before making the sharp turn to affordable housing. “We’ve just been using it the wrong way.”

In a world where stick-built homes are the convention, houses made of plastic can be a hard sell. The mention of plastic — already ubiquitous in daily life, including in our bodies — may turn off some. But there’s nothing like an emergency to shift views.

The unhoused population in L.A. County has climbed to 69,000, a situation made worse by long waits for permanent housing affordable to people with low incomes.

A narrow but deep living area with wooden floors, a gray couch, a wooden dining table, refrigerators, and a second dining table.

To quickly move people from encampments to interim housing, cities and non-profits have turned to alternative types of housing like shed-like units made of aluminum or shipping containers stacked like building blocks.

But as concerns about cost and habitability with some of those structures emerge, companies like LifeArk are gaining a foothold in the pre-fabricated housing space.

Proof-of-concept in El Monte

The Duarte-based company has started to land contracts up and down California's Central Coast. Its modules are going to into a new interim housing project in Santa Maria and another one in Paso Robles. Next it plans to build a campus of 80 units of permanent and interim housing in San Luis Obispo for a project led by the homeless services division of San Luis Obispo County.

A photo taken from high above of various structures, houses, a street with cars, and trees.

Closer to home, possible collaborations are being discussed with the offices of L.A. city councilmembers and church leaders who are looking to develop unused land.

As a proof of concept, LifeArk used its own product to develop a narrow lot in El Monte last year, partly with a $1 million innovation grant it won from the county.

Workers stitched together dozens of modules to create three beige-gray, low-lying buildings that blend into a neighborhood that includes an ice cream supplier and faded stucco apartment complex. One of the 19 units is reserved for case managers offering homelessness support services through the Santa Ana-based Illumination Foundation, which is part owner of the El Monte property.

A photo taken from the kitchen with various veggies on the counter, a sink, and a cabinet, in the far end there's a bed with white duvet and light blue pillow next to a window with bright light.

The inside of an individual’s living unit at LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.

(

Brian Feinzimer

LAist

)

A photo of a small living space with a bed next to a window a desk behind the bend and some shelves.

The inside of an individual’s living unit at LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.

(

Brian Feinzimer

LAist

)

“It looks all brand-new, like a modern place,” said Sharon Downing, resident and on-site property manager, surveying her nearly 200-square-foot space that comes with its own bathroom and kitchenette.

Downing had stayed for 17 years in an encampment in the Azusa Canyon. Rocks and sticks she collected during her life in the mountains accent her unit. A carpeted tower for her cat Kiss Kiss stands near a neatly-made bed she's topped with teddy bears. Outside her window is a garden where she tends to raised beds of green onions and lettuce.

"You wouldn't even think that you're living in plastic," Downing said.

A white middle aged woman with a light gray jacket and baseball cap and shoulder length light brown hair tends to a green stems with leaves.

The price tag

The high cost of land and materials in California makes affordable housing, like all housing, expensive to build. Add to that the drawn-out and costly process of securing funding and government subsidies and meeting environmental and labor regulations.

But LifeArk says it managed to slash the cost of the El Monte development to $3.6 million by completing 90% of the construction at its factory in the Central Valley city of Madera.

A shot of a rotational molding machine for making plastic parts.

Site work was also minimal. There no trenching. And instead of hooking up individual units to utilities, all the rooms in a building access water, power and gas from the same lines.

A recent report prepared for the United Way of Greater L.A. showed LifeArk's $190,000 per-unit cost in El Monte was the lowest out of 28 permanent supportive housing projects studied by the authors.

The median per unit cost was $470,000 — 2.5 times more than what LifeArk spent.

From the Amazon to L.A.

The original plan hadn’t been to house L.A.’s unhoused population.

Wee, who studied architecture at UCLA, said he had grown “jaded” designing high-rises for corporations, which included the much-discussed “invisible skyscraper” in South Korea.

About eight years ago, he decided to accept a long-standing invite to visit his cousin who had left South Korea to be a missionary in the Amazon. Wee was struck by how locals living along the river had to move whenever waters rose.

Two hands hold a plastic block filled with yellow-colored foam.

“I decided, ‘Let me actually see if I can come up with housing that can float on the water,” Wee said. Hence the name LifeArk.

Around the same time, Paul Cho was trying to find the most affordable way to build homes for Illumination Foundation, the homelessness services provider he had co-founded in Orange County.

A co-worker, who happened to be Wee’s cousin, had told him about the architect's quest to build floatable plastic housing. Cho visited Wee’s studio, then located in South Pasadena, highly skeptical.

“But the more I learned about it, I thought, actually, this concept would have applications for the homeless right here in our backyard,” Cho recalled.

A middle aged Asian man with salt and pepper hair wearing a black NorthFace fleece jacket and glasses stands next to another middle aged Asian man with short dark hair, a dark gray button up shirt.They are outside next to a structure with horizontal metal slabs.

The two men decided to join forces. Cho left his post as chief financial officer at Illumination Foundation to become LifeArk’s CFO but still advises the nonprofit, bringing it onto provide support services at the El Monte property.

The pair, both Korean Americans who emigrated to the U.S. with their families as pre-teens, became a rare executive team of color in a home manufacturing industry dominated by white men.

They found other commonalities. Both are in their early 60's. Both had mid-life crises that led to job changes. When he was in his early 40's, Cho quit being an investment banker for firms like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. He attended graduate school at the University of California, Irvine to start a new career in human services.

Both are also devout Christians. Wee's fellow church-goers, in fact, manage the El Monte property through a non-profit, and have an ownership stake.

LifeArk's faith-driven mission was apparent to the Rev. Paige Eaves, a leader in the California-Pacific Conference of The United Methodist Church who met Cho at a summit on homelessness convened for religious organizations.

Eaves and her colleagues have been in discussions with LifeArk about developing church-owned land in the region.

"It definitely helps that we have partners with a common heart because there's a common language and it makes it easy for us to understand what motivates us," Eaves said.

Fireballs and earthquakes

Word-of-mouth about the El Monte location has led to regular requests for visits by those active in L.A.’s housing circles.

Cho and Wee recently gave a tour to a group of real estate agents and community leaders, including Jackie Dupont-Walker, who works on affordable housing as a Metro board director and president of Ward Economic Development Corp. in South L.A.

The LifeArk duo answered questions they knew were coming. How fast can you build? Cho said a 3,600-square-foot building with 12 bedrooms took 55 days to assemble.

What about flammability? Wee explained that the company spent five years formulating a polymer with a non-toxic retardant.

“We're able to get what's called a Class A roof, which means I can actually throw a fireball on my roof and it will self-extinguish,” Wee said.

Then there’s the little problem of earthquakes. Wee said the moldability of plastic allowed him to shape modular parts to withstand cracks and heavy loads. Testing showed it could survive a 9.0 magnitude quake, he said. (For reference, the Northridge quake measured 6.7.)

A Black woman with graying hair pulled back in a bun wearing an orange, purple, and green plaid jacket and a salmon button up dress shirt speaks to a group of people who is out of frame. Behind her Black woman with a purple and blue patterned shirt and headscarf looks on at the woman speaking.

Those on the tour marveled at the speed with which the development was constructed and how it offered both privacy and common space where residents could play games and share meals.

The visitors also envisioned uses for the modules beyond interim housing, such as senior living centers and backyard houses.

“If we have to tweak it a little bit to be back in South Central L.A., that's what we'll do,” Dupont-Walker said. “This absolutely is visionary."

The use of plastic didn't seem to bother anyone. The group's members pointed out plastic is everywhere in homes — in vinyl siding, patio furniture. Why not entire houses?

The other kids on the block

As cities look to pre-fab structures as homelessness solutions, other companies have already gotten in the door.

The Washington-based company Pallet emerged as a market leader in L.A. during the pandemic. City officials, under legal pressure to create more beds, saw in the stand-alone units a fast way to get people into their own space and avoid the coronavirus.

Since 2021, the city and county have bought hundreds of 64-square-foot Pallet units made of aluminum and composite to build "tiny home villages." The expansion of these communities, however, have come with criticism that the units resemble jail cells and that the city overspends on site work to accommodate housing with a limited life span and questionable resistance to fires.

The same time Pallet shelters were proliferating, shipping containers also entered the spotlight. Interim housing projects unveiled during the pandemic had repurposed containers into modular units at the Hilda L. Solis Care First Village near downtown L.A. and “bridge” housing opened by the city of L.A. in Westlake.

It's like, ‘Okay, well, what comes next?'

— Ross Zelen, on the reaction to fluctuating costs of shipping containers

But the pandemic exposed how wildly the cost of shipping containers can fluctuate. Container prices surged alongside the demand for imported goods from people sequestered at home, according to Ross Zelen, who wrote a recent white paper on homeless housing for the Urban Land Institute.

“All of the builders who were thinking about using shipping containers were like, ‘Stick-building is now the better option because it's more expensive to think about this innovative shipping container model,’” Zelen said. “It's like, ‘Okay, well, what comes next?”

Finding new spaces for building

LifeArk may be the new kid in town but it already has influential supporters such as Lewis Horne, a top executive at CBRE, the country’s largest commercial real estate services company.

Horne said as part of CBRE’s commitment to social responsibility, he is trying to help locate properties to site LifeArk units. He said LifeArk stands out because of its ability to mass-produce durable and "dignified" homes that can be configured to fit on odd-shaped parcels, of which there are many in L.A.

“We're not going to solve this problem by putting large communities on large land parcels,” Horne said. “We’re going to be dealing with smaller sites, so the idea is to get better density."

LifeArk’s ability to scale up helped to win over the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which provides loans and other financial services to nonprofits.

A 60-something white woman in a white shirt and tan cap speaks to 30-something Asian American woman in a tan jacket.

The fund lent LifeArk $2.1 million to build its El Monte location at a time when traditional banks didn’t want to take the underwriting risk on an untested building technology.

“Why we entered into this was to demonstrate to others that it is a worthwhile investment,” said Kristin Giantris, the fund’s chief of client services. "Not fundable by philanthropy but investable."

Wee, for his part, is still set on his original dream of getting plastic modules to disaster-prone places like the Amazon. But the housing crunch in his backyard is the focus now and he said he is “eternally grateful” that he met Cho, which put them on a challenging but clear path together.

“If you're really looking at solving not only the homeless crisis, but the affordable housing crisis, you got to be able to pump out houses. Literally,” Wee said.

Civics & Democracy

CA ICE lawsuits

Senate bill would expose agents to legal action

By Guy Marzorati | KQED

Published January 27, 2026 5:48 PM

A peron stands with outstretched hands in front of a row of uniformed deputies in gas masks. The road is littered with what appears to be spent tear gas canisters.

An anti-ICE protester challenges deputies in Paramount.

(

Carlin Stiehl

Getty Images

)

Topline:

A bill that would make it easier for Californians to sue immigration agents and other federal officials for civil rights violations sailed through the state Senate on Tuesday.

Why it matters: Senate Bill 747, dubbed the No Kings Act, would create a first-in-the-nation legal pathway for residents to seek financial damages in state court for excessive force, false arrest and other violations of constitutional rights committed by federal officers.

Why now: The bill was written by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. If state or local law enforcement officers had shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two people recently killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, they could be held financially liable, he said.

How we got here: The measure passed the state Senate on a 30-10 party-line vote, with Republicans arguing the bill could expose local police to more lawsuits.

Read on ... for more on the bill and the larger national context.

A bill that would make it easier for Californians to sue immigration agents and other federal officials for civil rights violations sailed through the state Senate on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 747, dubbed the No Kings Act, would create a first-in-the-nation legal pathway for residents to seek financial damages in state court for excessive force, false arrest and other violations of constitutional rights committed by federal officers.

The bill was written by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. If state or local law enforcement officers had shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two people recently killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, they could be held financially liable, he said.

“But under current law, it’s almost impossible to file that same lawsuit against a federal agent who does the same thing,” Wiener said. “If the federal government won’t hold these agents accountable for violating the Constitution, we will.”

The measure passed the state Senate on a 30-10 party-line vote, with Republicans arguing the bill could expose local police to more lawsuits.

Tuesday’s vote is the latest move by Democrats in the state Legislature to create a bulwark against the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown.

Last year, lawmakers set aside $25 million for legal nonprofits to defend residents facing detention or deportation. They also approved a bill, written by Wiener, to prohibit local and federal law enforcement officers from wearing masks on duty — which is currently facing a legal challenge from the Trump administration.

SB 747’s supporters said it would give Californians a chance to hold federal officials accountable in a way that can be difficult under current law.

Border patrol agents, most masked and wearing sunglasses, walk down a sidewalk with some cameras recording them.

“Today we are deliberating an issue to try to solve and also remedy the fear that folks are living with,” said Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara. “In combination with the fact that we have not seen due process.”

Wiener argued that existing law makes it difficult for victims to receive damages in federal court. For example, the Federal Tort Claims Act protects the government from liability arising from decisions made by individual officers and requires plaintiffs to first file an administrative claim.

Supporters of SB 747 include the Prosecutors Alliance, a coalition of progressive district attorneys, and Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, which advocates for immigrants in California’s Inland Empire.

The bill is opposed by organizations representing California police officers, sheriffs and Highway Patrol officers.

They argued the change will undercut an existing state law, known as the Bane Act, which requires Californians who sue law enforcement officials to show that a civil rights violation was accomplished through “threats, intimidation, or coercion.”

“The question before you is not whether accountability should exist, but what creating a second, overlapping state system actually adds — other than more litigation and more risk for those on the front lines,” said Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Santa Clarita.

During debate on the Senate floor, Wiener said local police officers and sheriffs can already be sued under federal law for violating constitutional rights.

“The liability that local and state police officers face will be the same after this is signed into law as before,” Wiener said. “It doesn’t change that.”

Senate Bill 747 now heads to the state Assembly.

In an analysis of SB 747, staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote, “the bill is very likely to be challenged by the federal government if signed into law.”

A scrappy start

To understand what it took to get here, we’ll go back to 1872. Back then, the city of L.A. only had about 6,000 residents. Dirt roads were everywhere and agriculture was king.

The region was still fresh off the transition to American rule, and local leaders were just starting to dream up what the city could look like, especially in the downtown area.

There was no “LAPL” during this time — a group called the Los Angeles Library Association attended to local reading needs. John Szabo, current L.A. city librarian, says that early system was pretty bare bones.

“ It was a very small one room library with a handful of books,” he told host Larry Mantle on LAist 89.3’s AirTalk.

That was in the Downey Block building at Temple and Main streets, which is where the Federal Courthouse stands today. There were newspaper racks and shelves with about 750 books, while another space had checkers and chess — because what more do you need to fuel young minds?

A blacka and white archival film negative of the Downey Block building on the street corner, with cobblestone streets, horse-drawn wagon, and water fountain in the foreground. The awnings and windows of the Downey Block storefronts have signs including: "Dr. Crawford, Dentist," "Dr. U.D. Reed, Dentist," "Maier & Zobelein Pilsener, Beer on Draught," "John Brown Our Best 5 Cigar ... 301 J.N. Rushton" at 301 N. Main Street, and "303 New-York Clothing House." The edge of Hazard and Harpham Patent Office can be seen attached to upper floor of building in upper left of image.

The city needed a lot more because of rapid growth, but money was an issue. To help meet the demand, the association became an official city department in 1878. That allowed local officials to fund their new “Los Angeles Public Library.”

Over the years, LAPL would open satellite “reading rooms” and branch libraries. However, the main collection was expanding quickly. The books were essentially couch-surfing for years. They moved four times into different rented spaces, including into City Hall in 1889.

This was a temporary home that lasted for a couple of decades. Then, the effort to build a central library picked up steam. One of those was with a plan to put it in Pershing Square, but the project went awry. So the collection moved again — this time into a department store building (while it was still running), between women’s clothes and furniture, where it stayed for six years.

A new, innovative library

When Everett Perry, an energetic city librarian, took the helm in 1911, he lobbied for years for a central library to be created.

Finally, a decade later, voters passed a measure for a $2 million bond to pay for a new dedicated building. That would become the Central Library we have today. L.A. was a little late among large U.S. cities for getting a central library, but it finally opened in July 1926.

A black and white archival view of the ornate mosaic-like dome of the library's rotunda. The sunburst image located directly above the globe chandelier mirrors the sunburst design of the pyramid on top of the building. A chandelier hangs from the rotunda's ceiling, composed of cast bronze, is part of a model of the solar system.

The building was designed by New York architect Bertram Goodhue with art deco and Egyptian influence, common motifs of the time.

It’s elaborately decorated with murals, mosaics and sculptures. For example, black marble sphinxes sit inside and a mosaic tile pyramid with a handheld torch makes up the roof. Szabo says it was well received by Angelenos.

“ Of course I’m biased, but I think it’s the most beautiful library in the world,” Szabo said. “ [It was] a great sense of pride in a growing city, sort of putting L.A. on the map.”

News

Genocide survivor seized

Sithy Yi detained at immigration check-in

Jordan Rynning holds local government accountable, covering city halls, law enforcement and other powerful institutions.

Published January 27, 2026 2:27 PM

A woman and her three daughters stand in front of a hanging quilt.

San Croucher and her three daughters, Sithy Yi, Sithea San and Jennifer Diep at Kamput Refugee Camp, Thailand, in 1981. Photo was taken after the family fled genocide in Cambodia.

(

Courtesy Sithea San

)

Topline:

Sithy Yi fled genocide in Cambodia and came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1981. She was detained Jan. 8 at a regular immigration check-in in Santa Ana, and her lawyer, Kim Luu-Ng, says Yi is being held unlawfully at the Adelanto detention center.

Yi’s lawyer sued to have her released: After receiving protections against being deported to Cambodia and cooperating with law enforcement in a case against her abuser, Luu-Ng claims that federal immigration officials detained Yi two weeks ago as a form of punishment and to instill fear in immigrant communities.

Others with pending visas also at risk of deportation: The Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC) and other immigrant rights organizations sued the Department of Homeland Security last year over new immigration enforcement policies.

Erika Cervantes, an attorney representing ICWC in the case, told LAist that until early 2025 there was a presumption that victims who came forward to help law enforcement would be protected, but she claims some of those protections have been unlawfully removed. She said hundreds of people have been affected by the policy changes.

LAist reached out to DHS and ICE, but have not received comment at the time of publication.

Read on ... for more about Sithy Yi’s story and changes in how immigration enforcement agencies treat victims of crime, torture and human trafficking.

Sithy Yi fled genocide in Cambodia and came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1981. She was detained earlier this month at a regular immigration check-in in Santa Ana, and her lawyer, Kim Luu-Ng, says Yi is being held unlawfully at the Adelanto detention center.

Luu-Ng said Yi was ordered by an immigration court to be removed from the country in 2016, but her removal was withheld out of concerns she would be tortured if she returned to Cambodia.

After 10 years complying with ICE instructions and initiating a still-pending visa application, Luu-Ng claims that federal immigration officials detained Yi two weeks ago as a form of punishment and to instill fear in immigrant communities.

Yi is one of potentially hundreds of people with pending visa applications meant to protect victims of crime or human trafficking whose status has been abruptly put at risk by immigration policy changes ordered by the Trump administration, Luu-Ng and other immigration attorneys told LAist.

Yi cannot be deported back to Cambodia, her attorney said. Luu-Ng said immigration officials have not told her where Yi might be deported to and says her detention is unconstitutional and inhumane without a plan of where to send her. Luu-Ng has filed a petition in federal court arguing for Yi to be released from detention. Federal officials have not yet responded in court.

”I think this case asks a very simple question,” Luu-Ng said. “Can the government jail someone when it has no real plan to deport them?

“The Constitution says no."

ICE has not responded to LAist’s request for comment on this story.

Escaping violence

Sithea San, Yi’s sister, remembers the day her family was forced to leave their home.

According to her recollection, the Khmer Rouge approached them at gunpoint April 17, 1975, saying they had to leave before American forces were expected to bomb their city, Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Rouge was a Communist regime that brutally tortured, murdered and starved more than a million Cambodians in the 1970s. A United Nations-assisted tribunal began investigations in 2007 and found surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The family left that day thinking they would be gone for only three days. Their horrific experience would last years, until they arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1981.

Sithea San recounted how Yi, the eldest sister who was just 9 years old when they left their home, used to steal food to keep her family alive in Cambodia.

After getting caught stealing by the Khmer Rouge several times, San said her sister was given a final warning: If she got caught again they would kill her entire family. They led Yi to a place where they said she, her mother and two sisters would all be buried.

Yi was subjected to forced labor and torture at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, which she later described to Luu-Ng in 2016 as she fought in immigration court to be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Yi still carries scars from where guards would burn her with cigarettes, Luu-Ng told LAist. She said Yi has other scars that lie deeper.

Safe from the Khmer Rouge, troubles continue in the US

San said her family came to the U.S. in 1981, sponsored by her uncle. They arrived in California with just $10.

Yi’s mother and sisters had all become U.S. citizens by 1990, San told LAist, but Yi’s path to legal residency was more complicated.

San said their family did not understand it at the time, but Yi suffered from PTSD. She began to have seizures after they escaped Cambodia, which often prevented her from going to school once they arrived in the U.S.

Yi was also bullied at school, leading her to drop out, her sister said.

Far from Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, she again became a victim of abuse. Yi fell into a cycle of domestic violence, Luu-Ng told LAist, and she was severely abused by multiple partners over the years.

In 2011, Yi was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to probation. The abuse she faced at home continued and after being so severely beaten by her partner that she could not walk, Luu-Ng said, Yi missed one of her probation appointments.

She said that probation violation led to about a year in state prison, and from there Yi was transferred to ICE custody for removal proceedings.

Protections for victims of torture

Luu-Ng began working under a United Nations grant to help survivors of torture in immigration proceedings in 2009, and first met Yi in 2013.

She had talked with survivors of torture camps in Germany, Poland, Afghanistan and many other countries, but the story of what Yi and her family went through still left her shocked.

“ I've spoken to a lot of survivors of torture,” Luu-Ng told LAist. “Sithy’s story impacted me very, very deeply.”

Luu-Ng took on her case and argued in immigration court that Yi fell under protections granted by the United Nations Convention Against Torture — commonly known as CAT — banning anyone from being deported to countries where they will most likely be tortured.

The judge presiding over a 2016 hearing agreed.

“ We literally walked out of court within 30 minutes,” Luu-Ng said, “even the government counsel acknowledged the grave humanitarian concerns with this case.”

LAist reached out to ICE and an attorney who represented the agency, but they did not comment on the case.

Luu-Ng said Yi is not eligible for asylum status because of her conviction, but she has never heard of anyone being deported after receiving CAT protection.

“ Individuals who receive CAT withholding typically are allowed to live out the rest of their lives in the United States with a work permit,” she told LAist.

Even so, Luu-Ng said Yi also applied for a U visa in 2022 to further protect her from being deported. U visas are intended to give temporary immigration status to crime victims who have cooperated with law enforcement. Luu-Ng said Yi did cooperate with law enforcement in a case against one of her abusers and should qualify for a U visa, but she said they can take eight to ten years to be granted in some cases. She is still waiting for a decision on whether Yi’s visa will be approved.

A mother and her three daughters stand in front of four red leather chairs and microphones.

A policy change puts Yi’s future at risk

The Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC) and other immigrant rights organizations sued the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, in October of last year over new immigration enforcement policies on how immigration agents treat victims of abuse or human trafficking.

The group claims in court documents that the new policy “has allowed, for the first time in decades, the detention and removal of survivors of these violent crimes as a routine matter, without regard for the many protections Congress put in place for them.”

Erika Cervantes, a staff attorney for The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, is part of the legal team representing ICWC in the case. She told LAist that until early 2025 there was a presumption that victims who came forward to help law enforcement would be protected.

She said that U visas and T visas — another type of visa for victims of human trafficking — have strengthened law enforcement by allowing victims to be comfortable coming forward and telling police about their abuse without risk of being deported.

Then, in January, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the “total and efficient” enforcement of immigration laws. ICE shortly followed with a memo that removed previous requirements for agents to identify whether their targets are victims of crimes that might qualify them for protections against deportation.

Cervantes said the memo also cuts protections that had been in place for victims who are waiting for their U and T visas to be approved. Attorneys for ICE previously had been instructed to not seek deportation of U and T visa applicants unless there were “exceptional or exigent circumstances,” according to the new ICE memo, but Cervantes said the new memo removes the presumption that victims would be protected.

“ [The memo] essentially green lights targeting this vulnerable community who went out of their way to share their story, go through this visa process,” Cervantes said. “There’s an about face, and now they’re being put behind bars.”

Cervantes said the ICE memo has affected hundreds of people, and ICWC is asking a federal judge to set aside the policy changes.

“ We're trying to challenge the administration's attempt to criminalize victims,” she told LAist.

Detained by ICE

Yi’s detention on Jan. 8 came as a complete surprise.

According to her sister, Sithea San, she had helped the government when she came forward as a victim and always went to her monthly check-ins with ICE.

“ She complied with every single thing that the government asked her to do,” San told LAist.

In November, two months before her detention, Luu-Ng and San went with Yi for her check-in with ICE. Luu-Ng said they were concerned at that time that Yi could be detained because they saw reports of other people being taken from their families during check-ins.

After discussing Yi’s case with Luu-Ng, the immigration officials at the Santa Ana facility said she would need to start wearing an ankle monitor, but she was free to go home. Luu-Ng recalled one official telling her that as long as Yi didn’t tamper with the ankle monitor or violate any conditions of her electronic monitoring, ICE would not detain her.

“We went out and everyone was in tears, relieved,” Luu-Ng said.

Yi continued to check in, and Luu-Ng thought she would be fine because she was following ICE’s instructions. The next two months Yi went to her check-ins without a lawyer, but her sister still came along.

At her January check-in, San said they saw people crying in the waiting area. She said Yi approached them and tried to comfort them.

Then after waiting about an hour, ICE called Yi into a back room, alone.

Yi can’t read in English, San said, and sometimes she struggles to understand when people talk to her. San wanted to accompany her sister to be sure she understood any questions she might be asked.

Instead, she was stopped at the door.

“ And then I heard the sound . . . the handcuffs,” San said. “And that moment I feel like, am I dreaming? Is this real?”

San said she told the ICE agents that her sister had CAT protections and a pending U visa application, which she showed them. She said they told her it didn’t matter.

When San was later able to visit her sister in detention, she said Yi told her the ICE agents tried to coerce her to sign legal documents she couldn’t understand and threatened that things would get worse for her if she refused.

She said Yi didn’t sign the documents.

“So unfair”

Yi would not be in this situation under any other administration, said Mariko Khan, who is on the board of the nonprofit organization Cambodia Town, where she met Yi about 15 years ago.

“ Things would've been taken care of years ago and she certainly would not have had to be corralled at her check-in,” Khan said. “I mean, that's so unfair.”

Khan said Yi has been a consistent volunteer with Cambodia Town, which serves the largest Cambodian community outside Cambodia itself.

Khan had heard about some of Yi’s background over the years, and she learned that Yi had first found counseling when she was in prison. Having a background as a mental health professional, Khan said she was amazed to see Yi’s improvement.

“ I think it shows a lot of character and integrity that she could, given all that she had suffered, actually get better,” Khan said.

Yi has also been a mainstay with the Cambodia Town Parade. Khan said Yi had led a group of up to 30 women in the parade’s “Stop the Hate” event for the past three years.

Sithea San said Yi planned on coming to her house on Jan. 8 to work on the choreography for this year’s parade after they went to check in with ICE.

Fear in local communities

Manju Kulkarni is the executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, and she says people being detained by masked agents in the streets and others being held at their immigration appointments reminds some in Southeast Asian communities of the governments their families once fled.

Federal agents have repeatedly detained people at scheduled immigration check-ins over recent months, including Eaton Fire survivor Masuma Khan, 60-year San Diego resident Kazem Majd and dozens of others across California.

“ Communities that are made up often of refugees who escaped an American war in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam . . . are faced with the familiar terror,” Kulkarni told LAist. “Terror from which they thought they had escaped.”

Kulkarni and Luu-Ng told LAist they are deeply concerned that if Yi is deported to a third-country, she will then be sent by that country back to Cambodia despite an immigration judge already acknowledging she would most likely be tortured.

Reuters found that 22 people who were deported to Ghana as a third-country were then sent to their country of origin last year, despite court orders in the U.S meant to prevent that from happening.

For now, Luu-Ng is focused on getting Yi out of detention.

When San visited her sister at the Adelanto detention center on Jan. 18, Yi said she’d just had a nightmare, with scenes from her time under the oppression of the Khmer Rouge.

She told San being detained reminds her of those times, and she tries to keep her mind on other things.

“Remember during the Khmer Rouge,” San told Yi. “You know what we do. We need to have hope.”

Yi told her sister she had been trying to fill her time by teaching the other detainees how to do traditional Cambodian dances.

“How do you do it? How do you get the music?” San recalled asking Yi.

“She said she just sings.”

Hey, LA listener!

The Brief

Proof-of-concept in El Monte

The price tag

From the Amazon to L.A.

Fireballs and earthquakes

The other kids on the block

Finding new spaces for building

Keep up with LAist.

A scrappy start

A new, innovative library

Escaping violence

Safe from the Khmer Rouge, troubles continue in the US

Protections for victims of torture

A policy change puts Yi’s future at risk

Detained by ICE

“So unfair”

Fear in local communities