On July 1st of 2025, New York Governor Kathy Hochul pardoned Somchith Vatthanavong, an immigrant from Laos, to prevent him from being deported on the grounds of his manslaughter conviction 35 years earlier.
Vatthanavong, 52, entered the United States legally as a refugee fleeing from the Vietnam War, and then served 14 years in prison for first–degree manslaughter. He has been living under the threat of deportation for 25 years since he was released from prison in 2003, having received the order during his incarceration. Despite this, authorities were unable to deport him because Laos did not issue travel documents to Laotians that the US wished to deport.
However, in July, the Supreme Court permitted the president, Mr. Trump, to deport immigrants to countries they are not from, which has revitalized a fear within the community. As this fear of deportation became more tangible than ever, Ms. Hochul signed a certificate that gave Mr. Vatthanavong an unconditional pardon, which put an end to this growing threat.
“It’s lifted a huge weight off my shoulders,” Mr. Vatthanavong said in a phone interview. “I’m grateful.”
Mr. Vatthanavong was merely 16 when the incident unfolded. On the Christmas Eve of 1988, Mr. Vatthanavong was at a pool hall on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn with his friends when a fight broke out, and a man they didn’t know took out a knife. So, Mr. Vatthanavong took his friend’s gun and shot him.
Mr. Vatthanavong told a judge he shot the man in self-defense in 1990 when he pleaded guilty to first–degree manslaughter. I didn’t mean to kill him, you know, I just want to scare him. It was too dark, I couldn’t see.”
Looking back, Mr. Vatthanavong has expressed his lasting guilt towards his mistake.
“That’s the first time and that’s the last time that I would hold a gun,” Mr. Vatthanavong said in a later interview. “I regret it, and am remorseful.”
Mr. Vatthanavong, in the eyes of his family and supporters, is rehabilitated, and as Ms. Hochul puts it, “One of the toughest calls a governor can make is when another person’s fate is in their hands. Unless I believe someone poses a danger, I follow what the Bible tells us: ‘Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.’ They’ve paid their debt, and I’ll be damned if I let them be deported to a country where they don’t know a soul. And to those who would demonize them to score political points, I ask: Where is your compassion?”
