Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump's cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) — After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia.

But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the U.S. are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own.

“It fell out of sky,” Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration's decision, which he says threatens to upend his life.

“I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news,” Hour said, also through a translator.

Both men said they're worried about providing for their families and being allowed to stay in the U.S. They say it's impossible to return to Cambodia, a single-party state hostile to independent media where they fear being persecuted for their journalistic work.

The administration has been dismantling or slashing the size of federal agencies, leading tens of thousands of government workers and contractors to be fired or put on leave. But the targeting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, whose decades-old networks aim to extend American influence abroad, means journalists who have defied authoritarian regimes to help fulfill a U.S. mission of delivering pro-democracy programming could be deported and face harassment and persecution in their homelands.

Eleven journalists associated with the U.S.-funded media outlets are behind bars overseas, including RFA's Shin Daewe, who is serving 15 years in Myanmar on a charge of supporting terrorism.

At least 84 U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, journalists in the United States on work visas could face deportation, including at least 23 “at serious risk of being immediately arrested upon arrival and potentially imprisoned," according to the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders and a coalition of 36 human rights organizations.

“It is outrageous that these journalists, who risk their lives to expose the extent of repression in their home countries, might be completely abandoned," said Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.

“The U.S. Congress must take responsibility for protecting these reporters and all USAGM-funded outlets, funded by Congress itself,” Bruttin said. “This responsibility is not just moral — it stems from the United States’ commitment to defending the principles of democracy and press freedom.”

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee did not respond to requests for comment. The White House did not comment.

The State Department said it is coordinating with USAGM on imprisoned journalists and that it condemns unjust detentions of journalists for exercising their freedom of expression.

Journalists sue over Trump's order

A number of journalists for Voice of America, a news service also overseen by USAGM, have sued in a federal court. That includes two unnamed foreign journalists on temporary visas.

If deported, one could risk imprisonment for 10 years for his work for VOA, and the other, a member of a persecuted minority in his home country, could be in “physical danger," the lawsuit said.

The court has temporarily halted contract terminations, preventing the visa holders from being forced to leave for now.

Both RFA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, another USAGM-funded media outlet, also have sued seeking restoration of funding.

Trump's cuts come after the U.S. last year helped free Alsu Kurmasheva — a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and journalist with RFE/RL — in a high-profile prisoner swap that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

In February, the Trump administration announced the release of Andrey Kuznechyk, a Belarusian journalist with RFE/RL's Belarus service. The network still has four journalists jailed — one each in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea.

Voice of America has a contributor jailed in Myanmar and another in Vietnam, said Jessica Jerreat, VOA's press freedom editor.

In Vietnam, four RFA reporters are in jail and another is under house arrest, according to Tamara Bralo, the outlet's head of journalist security. She said she's concerned that American support in seeking their release could diminish if RFA folds.

Vietnam consistently ranks near the bottom in the Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, which says about 40 journalists are held in Vietnam's prisons where mistreatment is widespread.

Reporters fear being sent back

Khoa Lai, a Vietnamese journalist who joined RFA in Washington on a work visa only days before Trump took office, said returning to Vietnam is risky for him.

“I could face prosecution or be in prison,” said Lai, who produces video stories on freedom of speech, freedom of religion and political corruption for RFA's Vietnamese service. “I don't know for sure, but it won't be good."

Both Vuthy and Hour began working for RFA in Cambodia but had to leave in 2017 when Cambodia's top court dissolved the main opposition CNRP party, authorities arrested their colleagues and RFA closed its office.

In neighboring Thailand as refugees, both continued to report for RFA, but with their identities hidden. They still risked getting sent back to Cambodia until RFA brought them to the U.S. on work visas last year. They have reported on issues ranging from politics, corruption and human rights to climate change and environment.

Cambodia's autocratic former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who ruled his country for nearly four decades and passed power to his son Hun Manet, praised Trump in a Facebook post for "having the courage to lead the world to combat fake news" by cutting funding to USAGM.

Vuthy says he's still hopeful that RFA might survive, adding that it “is fighting for its existence."

___

Associated Press writers Kanis Leung in Hong Kong, Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Elsie Chen in Washington contributed to this report.