Milwaukee mother-of-five claims she was deported to Laos after attorney's shocking mistake

A Milwaukee mother-of-five was deported to a country she has never visited after her attorney made a shocking mistake.

Ma Yang, 37, was deported last month to Laos - despite not speaking the Lao language and having no friends or family in the country, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  

The military is now holding onto her papers, and Yang has been left without insulin for her diabetes and a dwindling supply of high blood pressure medication, she said. 

'The United States sent me back to die,' she claimed. 'I don't even know where to go. I don't even know what to do.' 

Yang was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, the daughter of Hmong refugees after the Vietnam War, TMJ 4 reports. They then brought her to the United States when she was just eight months old. 

She has since become a legal permanent resident of the US, but when she pleaded guilty to her role in a marijuana trafficking operation in 2020,  her permanent resident status was put at risk.

Still, she believed she would be allowed to stay in the country as Laos has typically refused to accept US deportees, with records showing that zero people were deported to the country in the last fiscal year.

But to her surprise, Yang was sent on a series of commercial flights from Chicago to Atlanta to South Korea and ultimately to Laos last year.

When she then arrived at the Laotian capital of Vientiane on March 6, Yang said she was questioned by military authorities - then was sent to a rooming house, where guards did not allow her to leave or contact anyone for five days.

She spent her days pacing around in circles as the guards refused to let her leave or contact anyone for five days. 

Then, just recently, Yang was let out to withdraw cash and buy a cellphone - allowing her to finally reach out to her partner of 16 years, Michael Bub, a US citizen.

At that point, she was told she could leave if she wanted -  but still, she says, she does not know where she would go.

'How do I rent, or buy, or anything with no papers?' she asked. 'I'm a nobody right now.' 

Yang now struggles to get answers from the Laos military officials about her living situation and what she is supposed to do now.

Meanwhile, Bub - who has had two brain surgeries and is partially paralyzed - has been struggling to care for their children as a single father. 

He hasn't been sleeping, noting that the last time he saw Yang was when he was rushing essentials and money to her before her flight.

'I think I screamed in the car for like half an hour,' he said.

Their eldest daughter, Azia, at the age of 22, has also been forced to step in to care for her siblings - the youngest of whom is six.

The problems began shortly after the family moved into a house that prosecutors say was part of a marijuana trafficking operation.

Prosecutors have claimed that Yang helped count and package cash that was mailed to marijuana suppliers in California, saying they found bags of cash taped between pages of magazines.

Yang ultimately took a plea deal and served two-and-a-half years in prison, claiming 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.

Following her sentence, Yang was transferred to an ICE detention center in Minnesota, where at the advice of an attorney, she signed a document agreeing that a deportation order would be issued against her in exchange for being released from detention.

At that point, Yang said she expected her second attorney to reopen her criminal case, and get the conviction thrown out on the grounds she had poor legal representation the first time.

If it were thrown out, she reasoned, the deportation order would become irrelevant.

But the attorney never fought the charges.

'I just keep getting screwed in this system,' she said.

By mid-February, Yang said she got a call from ICE asking her to go to their downtown Milwaukee office for a check-in.

That is when she was detained and sent to Indiana, Yang said.

Still, someone told her she would likely just sit in jail for a few months, then get released, since Laos would likely not take her back.

But after just two weeks, she was sent to a holding facility in Chicago and then to the airport, where an officer forced her to put her fingerprints on a document stating she would not return to the US.

Now, Yang says she feels betrayed by the US - noting that Hmong soldiers recruited by the CIA helped the American military in the Vietnam War, then faced persecution and violence for their role. 

'How did you send us back when we fought for you guys?' she asked, rhetorically. 'How is that OK?'