Youraj Koirala, leader of the nonprofit Bhutanese Community of Central PA, speaks about ICE detaining Bhutanese refugees during a April 16, 2026, press conference at the Dauphin County Administration Building.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Two more Bhutanese refugees detained in Pa. by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, community leaders say
Bhutan is accepting then re-deporting refugees, making them stateless and homeless in India and Nepal.
-
Jordan Wilkie/WITF
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Youraj Koirala, leader of the nonprofit Bhutanese Community of Central PA, speaks about ICE detaining Bhutanese refugees during a April 16, 2026, press conference at the Dauphin County Administration Building.
Leaders in the Bhutanese refugee community in Pennsylvania say two fellow refugees are detained and facing deportation. It’s the latest in a series of cases where President Donald Trump’s administration is deporting the refugees back to a country that simply kicks them out again.
Youraj Koirala, leader of the nonprofit Bhutanese Community of Central PA, which provides services to the refugee community, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained two of his fellow refugees over the weekend.
“Both individuals that were taken from their homes this past Saturday are permanent residents of this country, folks on the path of U.S. citizenship abruptly taken and likely on the path to deportation,” Koirala said at a Thursday morning press conference.
Since Trump took office, Bhutan adopted a new policy to allow the U.S. to send former refugees back to the country. Upon arrival, Bhutan re-deports them into India, without travel documents or resources to survive.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to questions for this story.
At least 20 of those people have been detained and deported from Pennsylvania, most from Dauphin and surrounding counties.
Robin Gurung, who leads a nonprofit called Asian Refugees United, has been tracking those cases.
“We know, out of those deported, some of them ended up going back to the same refugee camps we came from,” Gurung said. “Most of them are either hiding or missing somewhere in South Asia. And, unfortunately, one of them died of suicide.”
In the late 1980s into the 1990s, Bhutan’s monarchy pushed over 100,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese out of the country, revoking their citizenship and labeling them enemies of the state. For close to two decades, those refugees lived in camps in Nepal before a coalition of countries, led by the United States, resettled them between 2008 to 2017.
Today, roughly 40,000 of the 85,000 Bhutanese refugees brought to the U.S. live in Central Pennsylvania, making it the largest Nepali-speaking Bhutanese community outside of Bhutan itself.
Koirala and Gurung spoke about their own stories as refugees and their paths to resettlement in the U.S. In a process initiated under the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. welcomed Nepali-speaking refugees and, Gurung said, offered opportunity.
“This American promise has been broken through the horrific and unlawful targeting of our Bhutanese refugee community and too many others by an administration and immigration enforcement machine prioritizing hatred and violence over true public health, safety, and security,” Gurung said.
Gurung called on Congress to investigate whether the deportations to Bhutan are lawful. His organization, along with the nonprofit Asian Law Caucus, are suing the federal government over a Freedom of Information Act dispute seeking more information on how the deportations proceedings took place.
Koirala said they are seeking lawyers to help the two newly detained men avoid the same fate. He did not release information on the men at the request of their families, he said. Both men have been convicted and served time for misdemeanor charges, Koirala said.
“Now, months or years after the completion of their sentencing, these folks will be punished yet again for the same crimes but now harsher, now facing the possibility of removal,” Koirala said.
Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas, who is also running for the Democratic nomination for the 10th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, organized the press conference in the county office building. Douglas has been advocating alongside Bhutanese refugee community leaders since ICE began detaining people from that community a year ago.
State Sen. Patty Kim and Rep. Dave Madsen, both Democrats serving Dauphin County, spoke at the press conference in support of the Bhutanese community. Kim said her staff reached out to U.S. Senators John Fetterman and Dave McCormick’s offices for support and are waiting for more information.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
