Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Here's are two recent entries from his very active blog about his release: February 27, 2007: Eddy found out from his Guardian Angel yesterday that he would be released today. After being picked up by his family, Eddy got a haircut and saw his nephew & a new addition to the family. His parents were adoringly intent on overfeeding him. Though his deportation obstacle is still present, beginning tonight, Eddy will reside in Oakland. As soon as he is set up on a computer, he looks forward keeping in touch with you personally from now on through this blog. Stay tuned. + + + Friends & supporters of Eddy Zheng: This afternoon, Eddy Zheng was released from immigration detention! This does NOT mean that he will not be deported. It only means that he is no longer being held in immigration detention, while the government goes through the procedures of carrying out his deportation, which could take a while. He is continuing to challenge his deportation order in federal courts, which will probably take another year. If the government is able to carry out his deportation before the courts overturn the deportation order, he will be sent back to China. This was a very unexpected and unusual development, and we only found out yesterday that they were planning to release him today. This is the first time Eddy has been on the outside in 21 years -- since January 1986. He was reunited with his family at around 1pm in San Francisco today. He asked me to let you all know that he is extremely grateful for all of your support over the years. He said that he is very excited and that it feels very natural to be out. This is an extraordinary victory, although it is not yet complete. We are all extremely excited about focusing on winning the final part -- the overturning of his deportation order. Stay tuned for info on an event to welcome Eddy back. It's nice to finally share some good news with you all... + + + Eddy was convicted of kidnapping a San Francisco family in 1986, when he was 16-years-old and served a 7-to-life sentence. When he was finally paroled, he faced deportation because he was not a U.S. citizen. He's fought his deportation, has received lots of support from the API community, and received a fair amount of media attention over the years. Eddy still faces deportation to China, but while he's been incarcerated, he's been a prolific writer and blogger and recently edited an anthology of API prisoners' writings and artwork, which will be published in the spring. For more background information about Eddy and to read articles, visit his website.