SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Vannak Sok is shouting.
He grabs his mom’s shoulder and turns her ear toward him. He shouts again.
Channy Heng doesn’t speak much English, and she lost most of her hearing shortly after moving to the United States. That's why her son is shouting.
It’s also part of the reason Heng could be deported.
Heng met her husband in Cambodia, where she's a citizen. Charles Clay was a Marine veteran reckoning with his military service during the Vietnam War. The two married in 2007, and Heng moved to Cincinnati with a fiancée visa.
“I became her tall American hero,” Clay once said in an affidavit reviewed by WCPO. “Right away we fell in love with each other.”
But when Heng applied for permanent residence, Cincinnati immigration officials denied her a marriage-based green card. They said she gave inconsistent interviews and couldn’t speak English. Clay did not speak Khmer, the language Heng grew up speaking in Cambodia. But his family says the two bonded over the "Price is Right" and riding motorcycles.
His sister told WCPO they were always smiling together.
Still, immigration officials concluded their marriage was fraudulent and only used to circumvent immigration laws.
“I don’t know why they don’t believe them,” Sok said.
Now, Heng’s family is suing to overturn the ruling. Both a spokesperson for immigration services and the attorney representing the department on Heng’s case declined interview requests because of the lawsuit.
Last month, in a ruling allowing the case to continue, a federal judge criticized the government for its “dizzying complexity of immigration laws.”
Marcy Shieh, assistant professor of public law at Miami University, studies federal courts. Shieh reviewed some of the court documents at WCPO’s request.
“My initial reaction was this is the same terrible, convoluted process a lot of people I personally know have gone through,” she said. “It seems extremely difficult.”
As Heng’s health deteriorates, she’s stuck in limbo. Her husband died in 2018.
“It breaks my heart what is happening,” said Charleston Wang, the family’s attorney. “He passed away knowing that he could not give his wife what he wanted: her U.S. citizenship.”
If Heng’s lawsuit fails, government officials could begin deportation proceedings.
“She’s really sad,” Sok said. “And she prays inside her room.”
Folded neatly on the dresser in her bedroom, there’s an American flag from Clay's funeral. For Heng's family, the flag does not symbolize the same thing it did when they moved here.
“What else does the government want from us?” Clay said in a sworn statement before his death. “I love my wife, and I love her children.”
Watch Live:
