Community rallies behind City Watch Coffee co-owner held in ICE detention

Ratha San will turn 46 Tuesday in federal detention at the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center in Philipsburg.

The co-owner of City Watch Coffee with wife Kasey Daley, San was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Aug. 24.

In a statement to media outlets, the Department of Homeland Security alleged that San was a “criminal illegal alien from Cambodia” who legally entered the country through Philadelphia on March 15, 1982. (San’s family disputes this claim and says that San was not born in Cambodia, and emphasizes that he came here legally, see below.) The statement said that an immigration judge issued a final order of removal for San nearly 18 years ago, in December 2008. It also cited a criminal history that “includes two counts of cocaine possession, two counts of assault, larceny, receiving stolen property and weapon offense.”

The story shared by Daley on Facebook and in an interview with the Lebanon Daily News paints a different picture. LebTown attempted to interview Daley for this article, but had not been successful as of publication.

What’s not being debated by Daley is the fact that San does have a criminal history, with guilty pleas for seven charges in four separate cases – the first in 1999 (carrying a firearm without a license, receiving stolen property, possession of marijuana, and criminal conspiracy), the second in 2001 (controlled substance possession), and the last two in 2003 and 2007 (both for simple assault).

“He paid his debt to society, he paid his fines, he did his time, he completed whatever they asked of him, and on top of all that, and for all these years he has been complying with immigration services and checking in,” Daley told the Daily News.

Court records show that ICE requested documents in the case from the Lebanon County District Attorney’s office in May. Daley told the Daily News that the Aug. 24 check-in where he was detained had not been previously scheduled, and that San had been made to wear an ankle monitor months before.

Daley announced San’s detention in a Facebook post to the City Watch Coffee page on Wednesday, Aug. 26. She said in the post that San was not born in Cambodia, as federal agencies have alleged, but actually in a refugee camp in Thailand. His family, Daley said in the post, entered the United States legally through a family sponsorship.

“Ratha came here as a child, around one year old,” wrote Daley on Facebook. “In fact, he has never even set foot in Cambodia. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his family fled the war.”

“Over the past 20+ years, Ratha grew, changed, and dedicated himself to becoming a better person,” the post reads. “He built a family, worked hard, gave back to the community, and became an entrepreneur.”

Daley has said that the business, with locations in Cleona and Lebanon, will be sold.

Daley continued in the post: “As much as I want to be angry and hateful about everything that has happened, I can’t let that consume me. We have to continue to be a positive example for our older sons and young daughters. Instead, we will focus on building a new life for ourselves, our newborn, and our three-year-old daughter as we plan to relocate to Cambodia so that we can be together as a family.”

She put it even more simply to the Daily News: “I’m not breaking up my family for this. I can’t imagine my kids being without their father.”

Daley told the Daily News that she has contacted U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser’s office but nothing came from it, and that she knows San will be going to Cambodia “but my hope going forward is that one day he can come back.”

Cleona mayor Matt Zechman has lended his voice in support of the family.

“A petition has been started asking our federal elected officials to consider his case and support keeping him with his family here in Cleona and Lebanon,” wrote Zechman in the post. “I’m sharing it because I believe in supporting our local business owners and neighbors, especially when they’ve given so much back to this community.”

“I want to be clear that this isn’t about politics,” Zechman continued. “It’s about a family and a business that matters to this community. Regardless of where anyone stands on broader issues, I hope we can all recognize this is a genuinely difficult situation for people who have been part of our daily lives.”

Zechman linked to the petition, which as of publication had more than 1,800 signatures, and to the GoFundMe, which has already raised more than $12,000 towards a $22,000 goal.

Daley told the Daily News that her hope is for San to become a citizen and for her family to return.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that wherever we wind up, it’s going to turn out good,” she told the Daily News. “It has to.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated shortly after publication to fix an error in LebTown’s transcription of the DHS statement. LebTown sincerely regrets the error.