Asian refugee faces deportation despite fears of statelessness Mohan Karki's family and others with Nepali ancestry were persecuted and driven out of Bhutan in the 1990s. Karki himself was born in a refugee camp in nearby Nepal. Yet, the U.S. government claims he is a Bhutanese citizen and seeks to deport him there. National December 11, 20255:00 AM ET Refugee deportation proceedings to Bhutan Transcript Download Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5640174/nx-s1-9570132" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript AILSA CHANG, HOST: A South Asian refugee is facing deportation to Bhutan, a country where he has never lived. But it is where his family faced persecution before coming to the U.S. His lawyers argue that deporting him will effectively make him stateless and stranded in Asia, a fate that others in his position have experienced. NPR's Juliana Kim reports.JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: Tika Basnet traveled hours from Ohio to Michigan to attend her husband Mohan Karki's court hearing last week. It was also the first time Karki saw his 5-month-old daughter, who was born while he was in ICE detention. Basnet says last week's visit was brief.TIKA BASNET: I was crying inside, you know? 'Cause I don't want to cry in front of him 'cause he will break down.KIM: The federal government plans to deport Karki any day now. His removal order stems from a felony burglary case that he received when he was 17. Karki, who's now 30, is terrified of being sent to Bhutan. The tiny nation lies between India and China, and it's been called the kingdom of happiness. But Karki belongs to a minority ethnic group who endured persecution and fled Bhutan in the 1990s. He himself was born in a refugee camp in nearby Nepal and resettled to the U.S. in 2011. In court documents, the government asserts that Karki is a citizen of Bhutan, but his wife and attorneys strongly reject that claim.BASNET: My husband doesn't have a place. Like, he doesn't have a country at all, you know? He wasn't even born in Bhutan. He never saw Bhutan.KIM: For years, Bhutan didn't accept refugees like Karki facing deportation. But this year, dozens have been sent there, even while some claim that they were turned away by Bhutanese authorities upon arrival. In those cases, deported refugees ended up living in the shadows in nearby countries, where they also don't have legal status. That's according to Aisa Villarosa, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, a group that's been monitoring the deportations closely.AISA VILLAROSA: Folks are either missing, in hiding, you know, in fear of their lives.KIM: The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have not responded to requests for comment. For now, Karki's wife, Basnet, says she's trying to locate any possible family members in South Asia who can help her husband once he's deported. But she says she's had no luck, since all of their relatives resettled to the U.S.Juliana Kim, NPR News. Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.