By Bishnu Luitel , Harrisburg PA

From 14 to 17 December in Geneva, Switzerland, during the “Global Refugee Forum Progress Review Program,” an appeal letter was submitted to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on behalf of Robin Gurung, Executive Co-Director of Asian Refugees United (ARU), regarding human rights violations against Bhutanese refugees and the victims who have been continuously rendered stateless.

The said appeal letter, on behalf of Nepal, was handed over through the President of the non-governmental organization “International Human Rights, Environment and Development Organization” (INHURED International), Dr. Gopal Siwakoti, and the representative of “Act for Peace,”Brian Barbour to the Head of the UNHCR Protection Department, Elizabeth Tan, and the Head of the UNHCR Policy and Regulations Department, Mrs. Medillian Garlis. In addition, the said appeal letter was also handed over to Dr. Wes Era of the United States of America and Kuzesta of Germany.

The Royal Government of Bhutan (RGOB) has been continuously expelling its own citizens since the 1990s to the present day. As a result, these Bhutanese citizens have been forced to endure prolonged statelessness and have been subjected to harsh punishment .

In the appeal addressed to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), representatives of various non-profit organizations signed on behalf of Bhutanese who have been resettled in third countries.

The letter expresses serious concern and alarm over the continued expulsion by the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGOB) of members of the Bhutanese community who have been detained and deported by the United States of America.

A delegation comprising refugees, stateless persons, experts, and practitioners was scheduled to travel to Geneva, Switzerland from December 14–17. During that time, a United Nations–organized meeting titled the “Global Refugee Forum Progress Review” was held, with participation from high-level representatives of various governments and other stakeholders.

Representatives of Nepal-based human rights–focused non-governmental organization INHURED International, as well as the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN)—a regional network of more than 200 member organizations working on refugee rights in the Asia-Pacific region—agreed to convey this letter and its messages to key stakeholders present at the forum .

In response to the question raised in the aforementioned appeal letter, Robin Gurung, Executive Co-Director of Asian Refugees United (ARU), stated:
“The American government has arbitrarily deported immigrants who were residing in the United States, rendering them stateless. In this process, Bhutanese refugees—who have no second country—have been made victims of statelessness.”
Gurung further adds, “The global community must deliver justice to all refugees who have been made stateless.”

He appeals, saying, “Due to the strict immigration policies currently adopted by the United States, refugees are being rendered stateless. Therefore, these policies and practices must be completely stopped.”

In the same context, social activist and human rights worker, Bishwanath Chhetri laments:

“Bhutan provides travel documents to the former Bhutanese refugees deported by the United States, and then, the very next day after taking them to Bhutan, forces them across the border to India. The international community and concerned stakeholders must not allow the Bhutan government to act in such irresponsible manner or to openly terrorize the Bhutanese people. The Bhutan government must be held accountable for the injustices and crimes it has committed against its own citizens.”

Chhetri has strongly urged everyone to put pressure on Bhutan. He further added: “By promoting the slogan of ‘Gross National Happiness,’ (GNH) Bhutan has been misleading the international community. According to Chhetri the government is deceiving the world by covering up its injustices and crimes using is GNH slogan as a smokescreen.”
He further stated, “Stakeholders should not look only at the externally projected image of Bhutan, but should carefully examine the reality hidden behind its catchy slogan and hold Bhutan accountable and pressurize Bhutan to provide justice to its citizens whom it has rendered stateless”. Mr. Chhetri urges everyone to be vigilant and take action.

In the said appeal letter, support has been expressed and an urgent request has been made to the United Nations and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Refugees (UNHCR) to present the following demands immediately .

● To investigate these deportations and expulsions as thoroughly as possible; to examine whether international agreements, laws, and policies have been violated; and, as necessary, to coordinate with the governments of Bhutan, Nepal, India, and the United States to immediately halt, to the greatest extent possible, the ongoing process of rendering Bhutanese people stateless.

● To ensure the protection of the legal and international human rights of Bhutanese nationals who are being held in various detention facilities in the United States or who have been deported and are currently detained in any foreign country.

● To give greater priority to the protection and well-being of refugee groups and stateless persons; to ensure adequate resources (including the continuation of USAID financial assistance, staffing arrangements, support to embassies, expertise on statelessness, and the establishment of protection pathways for those rendered stateless due to deportation or expulsion); and to make a request to the international community as well as the Government of Bhutan in this regard.

Letter to UNHCR and other concerned authorities :-

Mr. Filippo Grandi
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Geneva, Switzerland
12/23/2025

Dear Mr. Filippo Grandi,

We, Asian Refugees United (ARU) and the undersigned Bhutanese community organizations,
write to update you and express our deep concern on the ongoing incidences of the expulsion of individuals identified as resettled Bhutanese by the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGOB), following their detainment and deportation by the United States of America.
Asian Refugees United is a refugees-led arts, healing, and social justice leadership center
cultivating and restoring wholeness in communities impacted by displacement through embodied training programs, collective power-building, ancestral practices, and connection to land and building refugee voice, visibility, justice, and power. Since 2016, arts and cultural activities have been and are our modalities.

Our long-term goal is the empowerment of immigrant and refugee community leaders to drive advocacy and solutions emerging from our own communities.

We are following up on a letter shared on April 12th, 2025, by Dr. Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, PhD,
President of the International Institute for Human Rights, Environment and Development,
regarding the Bhutanese refugees who have been detained in or deported from the USA and have
faced harassment, intimidation, and coercive interrogation.

Prior to the Trump administration, approximately 122 individuals living in the United States had
final orders of removal to Bhutan, which would not accept their entry into the country. As a
result, these community members, who are parents, caretakers, and community leaders, built
lives here with their U.S. citizen family members.

In March, ICE suddenly and forcefully
detained dozens of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese community members and deported them to
Bhutan, a country they had fled, and that immediately expelled them to India. Not recognized as its citizens by Bhutan nor welcomed by neighboring countries, these refugees are without any place to call home.

Since March of this year, we have tracked at least 70 Bhutanese community members that have
been arrested by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and at least 53
have been deported, the majority of whom are missing and cannot be reached by their families.

To our best knowledge, including direct communication with deported individuals and family members, none of the deported refugees have been permitted to remain in Bhutan, and all have been expelled from the country. The fact of these individuals’ expulsion from Bhutan after
deportation was communicated to the US immediately, and yet the US continued to deport
individuals with full knowledge of those facts.

This expulsion systemically denies them access to
safety, security, work, home, family, and recognition of nationality—breaking with longstanding U.S. and international human rights law and policy.

People have been taken from their homes, places of work, and even court appearances and
detained pending deportation. It is clear constitutional protections and procedures were not followed, and most who were arrested did not have legal representation. Many were quickly
moved to different prisons before they could speak to an attorney. Based on testimonies of the
deportees, they were accompanied by ICE agents to Bhutan and handed to officials there, but
within one day of their arrival in Bhutan, their personal documents had been confiscated and they were ejected from Bhutan into India. Some tried to enter Nepal without documentation, and
sadly, as of recent, one of our known deportees committed suicide. Others’ whereabouts and
well-being are unknown.

As Bhutan, Nepal and India are all unwilling to accept these stateless persons/refugees as residents, deporting them only to be expelled from Bhutan into India and Nepal was a violation of their rights.

The arrests, detention, and deportation of resettled Bhutanese refugees lawfully present in the US have caused widespread fear across our community. One family shared that authorities arrived at their home at 6 AM, surrounding it with multiple vehicles, and began pounding on the door, intending to arrest someone with a similar name. The family was subjected to aggressive
questioning, leaving them feeling deeply frightened. Most of those deported and detained were economic anchors of their families, leaving loved ones to scramble with their day-to-day needs.

These arrests, detentions, and deportations have broken long-standing promises laid out by the
United States in committing to refugee resettlement. In these instances, ICE targeted and
redetained Bhutanese refugees with final orders of removal and, often, with closed immigration
cases, who had been living peacefully in their communities, contributing to their economies and
neighborhoods, and raising families while under orders of supervision.

This even included some
with final orders based on offenses that happened decades ago–many times during someone’s
youth, or in situations where the immigration consequences of pleading guilty to a particular
offense were not adequately explained.

In other cases, ICE targeted refugees’ loved ones with final orders based on a criminal offense that was no longer a deportable offense under current
U.S. laws and policies. Additionally, the rapid and traumatic nature of these arrests–such as
during routine appointments with ICE, or in homes, schools, or workplaces–have made it
incredibly difficult to identify and appoint expert legal counsel to challenge deportation in court.
U.S. law does allow orders of removal for immigrants who have criminal convictions, although in many cases these convictions were over a decade old, and all sentencing completed.

Even for immigrants with criminal convictions, due process under the law is required. And when a person has no other country to call home, then – like any other American with past criminal records – deportation is unreasonably cruel. Decades of U.S. and international refugee law and policy,
including the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Convention Against Torture, denounce the forced
return of refugees to return to places where they face persecution.

The UNHCR, along with countries like the United States that extended promises of wellbeing
and belonging to our refugee community, has long established that deprivation or denial of
national identity can constitute persecution and can lead to additional human rights violations. In
Trop v. Dulles, this principle was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court when it stated that the
deprivation of nationality was “a form of punishment more primitive than torture.”

The documented plight of those deported and expelled into statelessness, along with the collective retraumatization of our U.S. and global Bhutanese refugee community, is a testament to these enduring violations of law, international accords, and human decency.

One of our community members, Mohan Karki, is a Bhutanese-Nepali refugee, beloved
caregiver to his aging parents, new dad, and caring husband to his wife of four years, Tika. He
has been detained in a Michigan state jail hundreds of miles away from his family, denied
in-person visits, and has remained under threat of deportation for nine months. On the day
before Thanksgiving (November 26, 2025), ICE threatened to imminently deport Mohan Karki
while he has multiple legal cases pending to challenge his detention and deportation, which
require due process and his presence.

This removal attempt came days before Mohan was scheduled to appear in person on December 3rd for a habeas corpus petition challenging his
detention, which has since been denied, leaving Mohan—and too many other Bhutanese
American refugees targeted by ICE—vulnerable to deportation to and expulsion from Bhutan.

Because of these government-sanctioned deportations and disappearances, community members and organizations worked with Asian Law Caucus (ALC) to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to uncover critical information on the mass detention and deportation of stateless refugees to Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and third countries. Directed at U.S. agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of State (DOS), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), this legal effort seeks answers on U.S. deportation practices, which have resulted in the sudden expulsion of over 400 Southeast Asian refugees and more than 50 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees as of July 2025.

The continued stateless status and conditions of these individuals both in the US and abroad
poses tremendous human rights violations and problems to well established international law
connected to nationality, the rights and protection of stateless persons, refugee rights and
protection, the protection of resettled refugees post resettlement, limits on expulsion, family
unity and the right to return to the US following unlawful expulsion, among others.
As your esteemed office gathers for the Global Refugee Forum Review in Geneva, we urgently
ask your office to:

●
Investigate these deportations and expulsions to the fullest possible extent, including any
violations of international agreements, laws, and policies, and engage with the governments of Bhutan, Nepal, India, and the United States as needed;
Defend the legal and international human rights of Bhutanese refugees who have been
detained in the United States and deported and detained abroad.
●
Increase attention on the safety and well-being of refugee groups and stateless people as a
priority, including ensuring the adequacy of resources (sustaining USAID funding,
staffing, and support to embassies, statelessness expertise), and pathways to security for
those made stateless through deportation or expulsion.
We, the undersigned Bhutanese community organizations, thank you for your steadfastness and action in advocating for the justice, dignity, and belonging of these individuals.
Sincerely,

Asian Refugees United and –

1. Bhutanese Community in Roanoke (Roanoke, Virginia, USA)
2. Bhutanese Cultural Foundation Scranton (Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA)
3. Bhutanese Welfare Association (Manchester, UK)
4. Bhutanese Community Association of Charlotte (Charlotte, North Carolina, USA)
5. Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
6. Bhutanese Community in Central Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
7. Bhutanese Community of Greater Cleveland (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
8. Bhutanese Community in the Netherlands (Zaandam, Netherlands)
9. Bhutanese Community in Syracuse (Syracuse, New York, USA)
10. Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
11. Bhutanese American Music Association (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
12. Bhutanese Community Association of Akron (Akron, Ohio, USA)
13. Bhutanese Kirat Rai Organization of America-Cleveland (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
14. Nelson Bhutanese Community (Nelson, New Zealand)
15. Shree Vaishnav Parisad America (Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA)
16. Antarastriya Nimbarka Adhyatmik Parisad (Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA)
17. Kirat RAi Yayokha of North America (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
18. Literature Council of Bhutan (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
19. Shadow Support Foundation (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
20. Global Bhutanese Hindu Organization (Galion, Ohio, USA)
21. Kriyamana (Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA)
22. The Bhutan Research and Information Network (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
23. Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (The Hague, The
Netherlands)
24. SATHI SA (Adelaide, South Australia)
25. Cairns Bhutanese Community Inc (Cairns, Queensland, Australia)
26. Shree Vaishnav Parishad Harrisburg (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
27. Nepali Language and Arts Center (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA)
28. Organization of Hindu Religion and Culture (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
29. Druk International Shito Ryu Karate Do Association Inc (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
USA)
30. Peace Initiative Bhutan (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
31. Kirat Cultural Society of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
32. South Australian Bhutanese Youth Association (Salisbury, Australia)
33. Global Bhutanese Literary Organization (Nebraska and Ohio, USA)
34. Canaan Bethel Church (Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA)
35. Himalayan Foundation-USA (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
36. Humanitarian Organization for Philanthropic Enthusiasm (Columbus, Ohio, US)

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