Reading Time: 12 minutes

Yaay Yang held onto his 3-year-old brother King’s hand as the two walked home on a sunny June afternoon. Their mom had caught King playing in a muddy puddle and asked the eldest of her five boys to escort him home for a change of clothes. 

A few blocks away, Yaay’s relatives sat under a pavilion at Lorraine Park in South St. Paul, waiting for his return so they could celebrate his high school graduation.

“I do understand it … being the role model,” Yaay, 17, said on the walk home. “It’s what I have to do. Even if I’m really not the best, I still want to be a good one for them.” 

Yaay’s life turned upside down five months ago when his dad, Zong Yang, 48, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February. Yaay, who also goes by his middle name Aden, found himself stepping into his father’s shoes. His mother, Linda Yang, became a single parent overnight, raising five sons without Zong – King, 3; Titan, 7; Everest, 8; Kenji, 15; Yaay, 17.

“I don’t want to disappoint them,” Yaay said of his younger brothers.  

Days after his dad was detained, he started falling behind in school. He eventually bounced back and started caring for his brothers after school. He’s taken on more house chores and cooks for his brothers.

“Admittedly, I’m not that good,” he said of his cooking skills, a slight smile on his face.

Zong had impressed on Yaay the importance of being a strong leader for his brothers long before federal immigration agents flooded Minnesota in late 2025.

“He wants to make sure that I’m ready, and that I have everything all figured out,” Yaay said. “I know that he does care deep down, and I do see that with myself too.”  

Relatives embrace Yang family

Yaay helped unload food from relatives’ cars earlier in the day at Lorraine Park as others finished setting up his graduation party. Luna, a black puppy, sat nearby under a picnic bench. The family bought Luna about a year and a half ago for Titan, but Yaay wound up as her main caretaker. 

In between greeting guests, Yaay found a quiet moment to check on King as he sat with cousins on a bench and gently rubbed the side of his cheek. 

Family members from North Carolina and Minnesota gathered after a heavy rain in the morning left puddles. Pop music played loudly over a speaker as guests ate pasta and Cheetos while Yaay’s uncle, Genue Lor, grilled sausages. While the mood was joyful, tears punctuated the day, as it was the first time the family had gathered in such large numbers since Zong’s deportation in May. 

As news of immigration agents arresting Hmong residents emerged last year, Zong’s potential deportation began looming over the family. Yaay said his dad had held onto the hope that he could avoid detention and deportation so he could attend the graduation events. 

Yaay pictured seeing both of his parents sitting among other families as he walked across the stage in his graduation cap and gown. 

“It does hurt,” he said of his dad’s absence from his graduation ceremony in early June. “A lot.” 

Zong was deported due to a felony burglary conviction from his early 20s and is one of many Hmong and Southeast Asian residents from Minnesota and elsewhere who were deported during Operation Metro Surge.

“He’s the glue that kept everybody together,” Linda said of Zong at the graduation party. “He’s kind of a jokester, and he likes to keep everybody entertained. If anything, he would be with everybody just drinking with them.” 

Dozens of children and adults danced to the music at the party. A large handmade sign hung in the background, reading “Congratulations” in large cursive red and white letters – Yaay’s high school colors. 

“It’s really big,” Yaay said of the party. “Can’t believe this is actually for me.” 

Linda’s older brother, John Lor, who lives in Inver Grove Heights, came with his wife and children. He was in the Yang family’s backyard with Zong when Linda called Zong on Feb. 4 to inform him that federal agents had abruptly cut her off on her way to work, and that they planned to pick him up the next morning. 

“I stayed with the family that day,” Lor said. “It was really heartbreaking. I try my best now to help my brother-in-law and my sister.”

Linda’s younger sister, Mai Cua Lor, who was at the party, looked up to Linda her entire life as a model for how to be a wife and mom. 

“She and her husband – they made such a big impact in our lives, showing us what love is and how to care for one another and putting family first,” Mai Cua said, adding that Linda is a “strong, independent woman.” 

But losing Zong has taken a toll on Linda, Mai Cua said. 

“She don’t ever ask for help. She don’t ever cry. She don’t ever show her weakness. So, when she turns to us and says, ‘I need help. I need support,’ it breaks my heart,” she said, her voice breaking. “Cause that’s my sister; she don’t ever ask for anything.” 

Mai Cua, who lives in North Carolina, felt helpless that she couldn’t do anything when Zong was detained, but she told Linda and her sons to never hesitate to ask for help.

Pa Houa Lo, one of Linda’s three sisters, lives in Elk River and drives down often to lift Linda’s spirits. 

“She’s so strong for her kids, and she doesn’t want her kids to see her cry, but then she turns to us,” Pa Houa said, breaking into a sob, ”and she just tells us she’s broken, ‘cause her rock is gone.” 

Linda grew up in North Carolina and was living there when a mutual friend introduced her to Zong, who lived in Minneapolis at the time. They kept in touch until they met in person in 2007; they married a year later. 

Linda’s brother, Genue Lor, drove 18 hours from North Carolina with his two children to support her. He said he’ll always support his sister and brother-in-law, but understands why opinions are divided over the reason for Zong’s deportation.

Linda knew about Zong’s past. He attended regular check-ins with federal immigration officials for 20 years. Since Laos historically refused to accept deportees from the United States, Linda and Zong never imagined he would be sent abroad. But things started to change last year as Laos shifted its stance due to political pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. Reality settled in. 

Linda told Sahan Journal she plans to move to Laos after their children are grown. 

“I believe in my sister, and she believes in the law of the system, too,” Genue said. “They really do believe in the American system. That’s why she still has hope that, one day, things will be better. Maybe not in the short-term, but in the long-term, because it’s just the hope of returning together and seeing each other again.” 

A dad’s toast from abroad

Surrounded by Yaay and her parents, who flew in from North Carolina, Linda delivered a short speech in the afternoon, thanking Yaay for stepping up to care for his brothers while also dealing with the pressures of being a high school senior. 

She smiled as tears ran down her face. 

“We haven’t done much for you, but you’ve done so much for us,” she said in a trembling voice.

She paused for a breath.

“And now you’re leaving me!” she said before bursting into laughter. 

Yaay wrapped his arm around his mom in a hug, prompting smiles among the guests. She leaned her head on his chest. Then, she announced a pre-recorded video toast from Zong. 

“But this toast isn’t my toast, ‘kay?” she said, her voice cracking. “This is Zong’s toast to everybody, ‘kay?”

She held up her phone, and Zong’s face appeared on the screen. 

“I just want to do a little toast,” he said as cars zoomed by in the background.

He thanked the guests for their attendance and said he was proud of Yaay. Speaking in Hmong, he said his heart cries when he thinks of the distance between himself and his family. 

“Aden, I’m very proud of you, son,” he said in English. “You did it. You made it. … It tears me up every time to think about you guys.” 

Yaay choked back tears as he stood next to his mom with his arms behind his back, his hands clasped together. Chong Lo, Yaay’s 65-year-old maternal grandmother, gave him a hug. Linda’s sister, Pa Houa, buried her face in her scarf. Everest, Yaay’s 8-year-old brother, cried as he listened to Zong’s recording.  

“Just want to say I love you — miss you man,” Zong said in the video, addressing Yaay. “I wish I could be there, but I can’t.” 

Zong held up a can of beer. 

“Remember, do the right thing in life,” he told Yaay. “Cheers you guys.” 

He downed the drink. Guests at the party lifted their beers and drank them all in one go.  

‘I’m not doing good’

Zong told Sahan Journal in an interview later that he couldn’t appear at the party via a livestream because seeing his family’s faces and hearing their questions would have flooded him with emotions. 

“I knew if I came live, I would have just been crying,” he said. “I would just be bawling, so I couldn’t do it like that.”

He couldn’t bear the thought of his family asking him how he was doing.

“I’m not doing good,” he said in a shaky voice. “I miss my wife, I miss my kids – so that’s why I couldn’t do it live.” 

Zong was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and was never issued citizenship in Thailand, Laos or the United States. He received a green card when he immigrated to the United States with his family as a child and said he never applied for citizenship because he assumed that his green card secured lifelong residency in the country because it said, “Permanent Resident.” 

His family first settled in California, where most of his siblings and his mom still live. He has an older brother in Minnesota. His dad died several years ago from a sudden illness. 

Zong was convicted of felony burglary in Wisconsin in 1999 for stealing several semi-automatic handguns from the Gander Mountain store in Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was 21. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, serving about seven years before he was released at the end of 2006, according to court records. His criminal record also includes a conviction for drug possession in 2019. 

@wisconsinwatch

Yaay Aden Yang’s relatives gathered in late June to celebrate his high school graduation. His father, Zong Yang, appeared at the party in a pre-recorded message because he was deported to Laos in May. Our partners at @SahanJournal followed Aden in the latest installment of an occasional series documenting how deportation reshapes families long after a loved one leaves. #Hmong #Deportation #MetroSurge #SouthStPaul #Minnesota #Midwest

♬ original sound – Wisconsin Watch – Wisconsin Watch

The burglary conviction is considered a removal offense by the federal government and stripped Zong of his green card and prevented him from ever applying for U.S. citizenship. It also resulted in a final order for deportation against him that required him to regularly check in with ICE at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at the discretion of his immigration officer, or until the government could find a country that would accept him as a deportee.

Zong spent about four months earlier this year in immigration detention facilities in Texas and Louisiana, before he was put on a flight to Laos. When he arrived in Laos on May 9, he was moved to a detention facility operated by the Lao government. He was later released because a local sponsor vouched for him, which is required of U.S. deportees before they leave Lao custody. 

“Nervousness is still there,” he said of his slow assimilation to life in Laos, a country he had never stepped foot in before. 

These days, he’s less intimidated buying food from local vendors, or when meeting new people. He’s making small steps to care for himself: He often goes to the gym with a friend and recently opened up a bank account. 

He lives alone in an apartment located 15 minutes from the National University of Laos in Vientiane, the country’s capital. 

“It’s like watching your life just live before you, and you can’t do nothing about it, just go on without you, you know? Like I was supposed to be in the picture,” Zong said of why he didn’t appear live at Yaay’s graduation party. “I’m not supposed to be 2,000 miles away. I’m not supposed to be in the Eastern Hemisphere, you know? I’m supposed to be right there with them.” 

Yaay prepares for college

After Zong’s toast, Linda passed the microphone to Yaay, who was caught by surprise. Yaay told the guests he plans to attend Winona State University this fall and study chemistry. 

“I’m just going to go and see what life has planned for me,” he said, holding tightly onto the microphone as he nervously glanced at the ground.  

“You got it baby!” his maternal aunt, Pa Houa, shouted.

Yaay graduated on June 4, walking across the stage in his red cap and gown as his dad watched live on WhatsApp through Linda’s cellphone. Zong, who didn’t attend college, always reminded his children to focus on education. 

Yaay walked with about 200 high school seniors. He wore a red stole with a Hmong design of the elephant foot motif and his name written in Hmong, “Yej Yaj.” Some of the student and teacher commencement speakers briefly addressed the federal immigration operation that rippled across Minnesota from late 2025 through early 2026. 

“It is a city built on the backs of immigrants, and it continues to be a community where we are strengthened by our immigrant families,” student speaker Jackson Schultz said about South St. Paul. 

Yaay was one of the last students called on stage. Linda zoomed in on him to give Zong a better view. Linda’s sister, Pa Houa, and Zong’s cousin, Mai Zoua, cheered loudly. 

“It’s emotional,” Linda said at the graduation ceremony. “I know his dad wanted to be here; it’s another one of those bittersweet moments.” 

Yaay, filled with a mix of excitement and nervous energy, found his family when the ceremony ended. 

“It’s the first time that my life’s not really being directed by going to the next school grade,” he said. “It’s going into college and moving up and living on my own. It’s adulting, basically.” 

Yaay smiled happily for photos, holding a bouquet of flowers and a string of balloons. He’s relied on close school friends to cope with his dad’s deportation. 

“It is a big accomplishment and obviously with all this stuff going on, I wish my dad was here to witness me do this, and just be here with me in this moment,” he said. “Being able to make my parents proud and being able to live up to their expectations, even how basic it is, it’s still heartwarming.” 

More than 7,000 miles away, Zong watched from Laos at about 8 a.m. as Yaay walked across the stage at 8 p.m. Minnesota time.

“I was just happy to see people that still love us to go support even though I wasn’t there,” Zong told Sahan Journal in an interview later, his voice cracking. “It was hard, but it’s just something that I was happy to see.”  

He hopes to find ways to still be a part of his sons’ lives during big and small milestones. 

“I hope that as they get older, they will understand the whole situation,” he said. “I hope that they do not hold on to say that I left willingly, that you know, that I had a choice, and I just went. That’s what’s going to hurt me the most.” 

Not dead, but gone

Yaay’s maternal grandfather, Nhia Ying Lo, 67, also gave a speech at Yaay’s graduation party, telling Linda to have a big heart, and that she has a family to rely on. He bent over and cried into his hand at times, overcome with emotions. 

Nhia Ying told Sahan Journal in an interview that what happened to Zong is unfair, given how the United States enlisted Hmong allies to fight in the Vietnam War. 

The United States started to recruit Hmong men and boys in 1961 to fight in a CIA-backed operation against Vietnamese communists. An estimated one-fourth of the Hmong men and boys who were recruited died in service, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Following the end of the Vietnam War, Hmong people fled political persecution prompted by their alliance with the United States. Many ended up in Thai refugee camps. Many Hmong, including Zong, were born in the camps and later immigrated to the United States. 

That generation of Hmong people don’t know the Lao culture or language, Nhia Ying said, and only have familiarity with the Hmong community in the United States.    

“Why would they take people like this, with access to jobs, to go live in Laos? They know we are people who don’t know anything (in Laos),” he said.  

When it was time for her speech, Yaay’s maternal grandmother, Chong Lo, 65, stood in front of him, one hand clasped over his shoulder.

“Help each other,” she said in Hmong. “Love your mom.” 

She cried every time she talked about Zong, or heard his name mentioned at the party. 

“I want people to see this, to know what the pain is like, that his life – he’s not dead, but he’s gone,” she said in an interview.

She pressed a tissue to her nose. 

“For a family to actually survive this, the parent with the children has to work double — double shifts,” she said, crying so hard she could barely finish her sentence. 

Seeing Yaay and Kenji helping Linda gives her some relief, she added. Linda’s sister and brother, Pa Houa and John Lor, who live in Minnesota, regularly visit the Yang family to help with the children.

“We’re never going to be able to replicate his dad, but we’re here to just show our love and support in every way possible, because he’s (Yayy) as much as our son, and that’s (Zong) as much as our father as well,” Pa Houa said. “It’s good to see (Yaay) pass his milestone, but it’s also a little bitter because you wish everyone could join you.”

Most of their family members were playing volleyball when Yaay and King returned to his graduation party after a 10-minute absence to change Yaay out of his muddy clothes. Yaay let go of King’s hand. King took a few steps and glanced back at Yaay with a look of uncertainty on his face.  

“Go,” Yaay said softly, motioning to the playground. 

Dozens of relatives from both sides of the family awaited them.

“Seeing everyone here,” Yaay said, “it’s nice, and I think I also needed this – just to see all the people who are there to back me up, and help me, and just give me something to work for and not fail.”

Minnesota teen balances graduation, new responsibilities after dad’s deportation to Laos is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 11 minutes

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.

Linda Yang was driving to work on a cold February morning when a large white van seemingly appeared out of nowhere and cut her off. Other vehicles suddenly rushed in, blocking her on all sides.  

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents jumped out and approached her. They asked if they could go to her home and pick up her husband, Zong.   

@sahanjournal

On Feb. 4, 2026, Immigration and Customs enforcement agents confronted Linda Yang with news to deport her husband Zong a day before he was due for one of his regular check-ins at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minnesota. But Linda refused to turn her husband over, demanding her and their children get one last day with Zong. Read more about their family’s deportation story at the link in bio. Video by Dymanh Chhoun #ice #immigration #deportation #hmong #twincities

♬ original sound – Sahan Journal – Sahan Journal

She refused. He was home with their youngest sons. She wouldn’t let things get messy in front of them. She wouldn’t let them take away the father of her five sons until they could say their goodbyes.

The agents told her they would come for Zong at 9 a.m. the next morning. Linda rushed to pick up her older sons from school. She called Zong. 

“‘ICE is coming to get you,” she said. “They’re going to come tomorrow morning.” 

Until recently, they had never thought Zong, 48, would be deported due to a felony burglary conviction from his 20s, which led to a final order of deportation. The couple felt safe from that possibility most of their marriage. But that sense of security shattered last year when local news outlets reported that Hmong residents from Minnesota and elsewhere were being deported to Laos. 

Federal immigration agents had been watching their South St. Paul home. They confronted Linda on Feb. 4, a day before Zong was due for one of his regular check-ins with the ICE office at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal building.

A few months after agents swarmed Linda’s car, Zong was deported to Laos, a country he had never stepped foot in before. Overnight, Linda, 41, was turned into a single mother of five sons —  King, 3; Titan, 7; Everest, 8; Kenji, 15; Yaay, 17. 

“I guess it was just kind of like, ‘It’s real. It’s happening,’ you know?” a teary-eyed Linda told Sahan Journal. “The day that we thought that would never happen, happened.” 

One last day 

Several relatives trickled through Linda and Zong’s house for hours the day Linda was stopped by ICE, crying and joking at times in an attempt to lighten the mood until 2 a.m. Some of their siblings, cousins and Zong’s son from a previous marriage gave Zong a pep talk, assuring him they would support his family while he was in Laos.

Linda and Zong received several calls from an unknown number throughout the morning after Linda’s encounter with ICE. She finally picked up the call around noon. A federal agent was on the other end. ICE agents would take Zong to his check-in the next morning so he could fill out paperwork, and then he would be “released,” she said the agent told her. They also said they planned to take Zong to a different location instead of the Whipple building because of ongoing protests. 

She let out a sigh of relief — Zong would return home, she thought. Still, questions lingered: Could she trust federal agents to tell the truth? ICE agents had never accompanied Zong to an appointment in the past.

Yaay, who family members refer to by his middle name, Aden, spent most of the day in his room like he would any other day, thinking his dad would return home after his immigration check-in the next day. 

Zong sensed that his three youngest sons felt the heavy atmosphere in their house. They didn’t know why everyone had gathered, and Zong couldn’t bring himself to explain the situation. Instead, he told Everest, Titan and King multiple times that he loved them, and that he had to go away. 

He told his two oldest sons, Yaay and Kenji, that he was facing potential deportation because of a felony conviction. They understood the gravity, having seen news coverage of Operation Metro Surge. He asked all of his sons for forgiveness, explaining that he was being taken away and not leaving them by choice.  

“It’s nothing that you guys or mom did. It’s something I did – a mistake, way back before I met your mom, and now I have to face the consequences of it,” he told them. 

Linda and Zong had discussed the deportation process with their oldest sons in the past year to prepare them for the possibility.  

“I was more aware of it and knew what was going to happen, so I was already able to mentally prepare myself while they still can’t really grasp it,” said Yaay, referring to his younger brothers. “They’ll have to go through a lot more of their lives, compared to mine, without our dad.” 

Part of Linda and Zong held onto some hope that federal agents would take Zong to his check-in the next morning and bring him home instead of detaining him for deportation. The other part slowly began accepting the painful reality that it could be Zong’s final hours with his family on U.S. soil.  

Linda packed underwear, pants, shirts, socks and shorts for Zong. Zong grabbed his essentials: allergy medicine, hydrocortisone cream, contact lenses and his glasses. They laughed later when Zong found that Linda had packed only three shirts.

Thoughts of running away crept into Zong’s mind as family and friends continued arriving to say their goodbyes, but he told himself he couldn’t get away from his past. 

“I just need to take it head on,” he told himself, comforted by the knowledge that Linda and his sons were by his side. 

“That’s what really, really helped me mentally, too, but even at that, we’re all still human — we want to be with family, your kids, your wife, and it was a tug of war,” Zong said later as he reflected on the last night with his family. 

Linda and Zong made breakfast for their sons the next morning. Linda’s phone buzzed again with a call from a federal agent. They wanted to detain Zong before 9 a.m. She refused. She didn’t want her sons’ last image of their father to be of him walking away with federal agents. 

Wait until the boys board their buses and leave for school, she told the agent. 

She felt relieved when the agent obliged. The agent told her they would send no more than two agents to the house and agreed not to put Zong in handcuffs. 

Yaay, Everest and Titan boarded their buses soon after the call as federal agents sat in vehicles idling nearby. Kenji, 15, stayed home to see his father off. About 9 a.m., less than 30 minutes after the last boys left, two federal agents came to the door. Zong grabbed his duffel bag and backpack. Linda and Zong hugged and kissed. 

“What are the chances that you guys are really releasing him back to me?” she asked the agents. 

They brushed her off, she said, saying they needed Zong for paperwork. She pressed on. 

“Can I come with you?” she asked. 

They wouldn’t allow her to get in their vehicle. She worried they would bring Zong to a “random warehouse.” But the federal agent on her front porch told her they were taking him to the Whipple building, contradicting what another agent had told her over the phone the previous day. 

As the two agents drove off with Zong, five other vehicles parked on the same street quickly pulled away, said Linda, who was stunned that more agents had been concealed and waiting.

Linda’s brother sat in a vehicle nearby, ready to give chase. She joined him, eager to see Zong walk out of the Whipple building free to go home. 

The past catches up

Linda and Zong started looking for attorneys early last year as news began circulating that Hmong residents were being deported. They worried that Zong could be next and closely followed news about other cases, comparing them to his case. 

“It (the detention of Hmong residents) didn’t bother me, but maybe it should’ve, but also maybe it was best that it didn’t get to me, because I would’ve ran or hid,” Zong told Sahan Journal in a video interview from Laos. “I didn’t know anything like this would happen. I wasn’t thinking of this side of the consequences.” 

Laos historically refused to accept deportees from the United States, but shifted its stance early last year due to political pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. It’s unclear how many Hmong and Southeast Asian residents have been deported to Laos. However, several Hmong Minnesotans have publicly documented loved ones’ deportations to Laos through Facebook or GoFundMe campaigns, as did the family of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, resident Ma Yang after her deportation to Laos in 2025.

Linda and Zong held onto hope after seeing a few cases where Hmong detainees were released from federal custody. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a pardon last year for Lue Yang, a father of six whose criminal conviction had been expunged, putting a stop to his deportation. Minnesota resident Thi Dua Vang, a refugee, was detained for two weeks in January before being released on bond. 

But attorneys told the Yang family there was nothing they could do. The legal costs and severity of Zong’s criminal conviction made it difficult to change his fate. 

Zong arrived in the United States with his family at age 3 after they fled Laos as refugees in the wake of the Vietnam War. Many Hmong, including children, had been recruited by the United States to serve as CIA-backed soldiers to fight against communists and to rescue downed American pilots and injured soldiers. As the U.S. military fled after the war, the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese militaries retaliated against the Hmong community for aiding the Americans, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Zong was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and had never been issued citizenship in Thailand, Laos or the United States. He received a green card when he immigrated to the United States and said he never applied for citizenship because he assumed that since his green card said “Permanent Resident,” it secured his lifelong residency in the country. 

He was convicted of felony burglary in Wisconsin in 1999 for stealing several semi-automatic handguns from the Gander Mountain store in Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was 21. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, serving about seven years before he was released at the end of 2006, according to court records. His criminal record also includes a conviction for drug possession in 2019. 

The burglary conviction is considered a removal offense by the federal government, stripping Zong of his green card and preventing him from ever applying for U.S. citizenship. It also resulted in a final order for deportation against him that required him to regularly check in with ICE at the Whipple building at the discretion of his immigration officer, or until the government could find a country that would accept him as a deportee.

“I should have not done anything like that, taking somebody else’s stuff. It was wrong,” Zong told Sahan Journal. “At that time, my mind was just, I was away from home, but my mind was just not where it was supposed to be.” 

Zong moved to Minnesota for a job and met Linda in 2007 through a mutual friend. She eventually moved to Minnesota from North Carolina, and the two married about a year later. They bought a house where their sons tussled on the living room floor. 

Zong never kept his past from Linda. He attended his check-ins at the Whipple building for 20 years. Initially, he checked in every three months, but it varied from every six months to twice a year back to every three months.

Their prior sense of security against Zong’s deportation started falling apart when federal immigration agents started flooding Minnesota last year. In an effort to lighten the mood, they started joking about Zong being deported to Laos, imagining him in different careers and soaking up the warm weather, and Linda visiting on vacation. 

She pictured growing old with him in Laos after the children had all grown up. They’d retire and buy a house there. 

Zong makes a plea for his spirit

Zong arrived at the Whipple building for the last time on Feb. 5, 2026, a chilly Thursday morning. Linda and her brother parked outside the building for about an hour and a half, waiting to pick him up after his check-in.

Federal agents put shackles around Zong’s ankles and brought him into a room with other shackled detainees. He knew he would never return home. 

He called Linda, who was still waiting outside. She broke down in tears. He was shipped to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, a few hours later.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to questions about federal agents’ interactions with the Yang family. 

Zong said there was no time to file any legal challenges in hopes of keeping him in the country or releasing him from custody, or to arrange a visit with an attorney before he was deported. 

Zong met about 50 other Hmong, Lao and Vietnamese men while detained in Texas. They were all later transferred to the El Paso Processing Center, where he said they were held for two months.

“It’s just so many thoughts and emotions running through my head,” Zong said of his state of mind while in federal custody. “It was just more of like, ‘This is it.’”

Zong still gets overwhelmed with emotions thinking about the day he was detained and the three months he spent in federal custody. He’s angry that federal agents tried to pick him up a day before his regular ICE check-in and falsely give his family hope that he would return home after the check-in. But he’s also grateful that he was able to say goodbye.  

“It was better than just getting snatched up and not spending time with my kids and my wife, you know?” Zong said of his last day with his family. 

In many cases, federal agents detained people at work, during traffic stops or while they were fueling their cars at the gas station. Agents detained people at bus stops, and while visiting businesses door-to-door in immigrant-dense neighborhoods. They detained children on their way home from school, broke into homes without warrants and arrested U.S. citizens, chasing and tackling people in the streets and snow. 

Zong, who practices traditional Hmong shamanism, looked out the airplane window on his deportation flight in early May and pleaded to the heavens to allow his spirit to follow him to Laos, and to let his family know that he did not choose to leave them. 

“I would never ever be able to step on this American soil again. I would never ever see my kids on American soil, where we built our home,” he recalled thinking at the time.

The Yang family’s new chapter 

Zong arrived in the Lao capital, Vientiane, on May 9 and was moved into a detention facility for U.S. deportees run by the Lao government. He found a sponsor, who is Hmong and a Lao citizen, to help vouch for him so he could move out into independent housing. Laos requires deportees to find a sponsor, complete multiple rounds of interviews with Lao officials and finish paperwork before leaving the detention facility. 

Zong was intimidated buying food at the local market his first few days because he doesn’t speak the Lao language. But he’s settling in, and making an effort to get to know other deportees. He spends his days going on walks, exploring the city and building up his confidence. 

He now lives in an apartment about 15 minutes from the National University of Laos in Vientiane. He calls Linda and their sons every day on Facebook or WhatsApp around 7 p.m. Minnesota time, or 7 a.m. Lao time, and once more before he goes to sleep.

Zong and Linda are coping with the turmoil of his deportation by documenting their journey on Facebook to help others going through the same experience, and to help their younger sons understand their father’s story one day. They’ve shared more than 50 posts through written entries, videos and photos chronicling their family’s separation.  

Linda, an accountant, has always been the family breadwinner, but Zong’s absence has added financial strain on their family. Zong was working as an overnight freight worker at Home Depot in Inver Grove Heights when he was deported. 

She got rid of one of their vehicles to cut costs and finds comfort in the support she’s received from family members. Her nephew and aunt have helped babysit King. Relatives visit more often these days to check on her family. But there’s only so much other family members can do to shore up Zong’s absence. 

Linda and Zong’s eldest son, Yaay, graduates from South St. Paul Secondary this year and plans to attend Winona State University this fall. 

“It is hard just going through all this without him,” said Yaay, 17. “I was expecting to go through all this with him, and for him to be there during my achievements. But it honestly has pushed me a little in some aspects just to do better, and be better.”

Linda and Yaay sat on a sofa in the family’s home in early May as Everest and Titan played with their cousins upstairs. King napped in another room. They cried and laughed as they recalled the last few months and thought about the year ahead without Zong. They didn’t know what the future would bring, but one thing was certain — they wouldn’t let an ocean keep their family apart. 

When ICE came for her husband, Linda Yang negotiated one more day with him. But their luck wouldn’t last. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.