Since December 24, 2009, LICADHO has been assisting a group of 24 Khmer Krom people after they were deported from Thailand as illegal immigrants. The Khmer Krom are an indigenous ethnic minority living mostly in southern Vietnam and Cambodia in the Mekong Delta area.

The group, which includes seven women and nine children, travelled to Thailand from Vietnam in 2008 in order to seek asylum after they were threatened with imprisonment if they did not stop protesting the confiscation of their land by the government of Vietnam. The farmland in question is located in Svay Torng and Tin Bieng district, Maot Chhrouk Province. The group claim that the Vietnamese authorities deleted their names from a residential list, confiscated their farmland and issued arrest warrants.

In late 2009, Thai police arrested the Khmer Krom. They were deported to Cambodia via Poipet on December 5, 2009.

On December 24, 2009, they travelled to Phnom Penh to seek assistance from NGOs. The Khmer Krom were provided temporary shelter in LICADHO's Phnom Penh office for one week. Here they received food, water, clothing, and financial support. At least three women from the group were suffering from serious illness, and were treated by the LICADHO medical team.

On December 28, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Cambodia rejected the group's request for refugee status, stating that they had no authority to grant the status because under Cambodian law, as all asylum petitions fall under the exclusive authority of the Cambodian government. Since then, five members of the group returned to Thailand to seek asylum there again.

The remaining Khmer Krom are currently living in a secure location in Phnom Penh, where they are supported by LICADHO, and await further assistance from the government of Cambodia. The group sent a letter to Ministry of Interior to request identification cards, birth certificates, family books, resident books, farmland, security, and shelter.

On January 8, 2010, The Phnom Penh Post reported that the Ministry of Interior's spokesman, Khieu Sopheak, affirmed that all Khmer Krom people have full rights to reside in Cambodia. Yet the government has since refused them even the bare essentials required in order for them to settle in Cambodia. On February 18, 2010, police officials denied the Khmer Krom's request for identification cards and family books, supposedly because the Khmer Krom did not have proof of a permanent address in Cambodia. The denial was a major blow to their hopes of taking up permanent residence in Cambodia. Without the identification documents, it will be difficult for the Khmer Krom to seek employment, education, and medical care. The Khmer Krom continue to dispute the decision, but have thus far been unsuccessful.

The fate of the Khmer Krom is uncertain. As long as they are refused the rights of refugees or of citizens, their future in Cambodia will remain unsettled. It seems unlikely that they will return to Vietnam, where they have faced persecution. A spokesperson for the group said that they "can return back to Vietnam if Vietnamese authorities recognize us as Khmer Krom, provide land and allow us to respect and celebrate Buddhist ceremonies," which does not seem likely.

The Khmer Krom are no strangers to adversity. They have faced a great deal of persecution and conflict in recent years. In June 2007, Khmer Krom monk Tim Sakhorn was arrested, defrocked, and deported to Vietnam by Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong and the Cambodian government. A Vietnamese court later convicted Tim Sakhorn of "sabotaging the Cambodia-Vietnam unification policy." He was sentenced to one year in prison. After serving his prison sentence Tim Sakhorn returned to Cambodia and later fled to Thailand after fears he would be rearrested. In July 2009 he was granted political asylum in Sweden.

On February 27, 2007, a group of fifty-two Khmer Krom monks demonstrated in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh, protesting the defrocking by the Vietnamese government of three monks who allegedly took part in a Khmer Krom demonstration in Southern Vietnam. The demonstration in Phnom Penh was violently broken up when 75 municipal intervention police wearing riot gear and shields attacked the monks with tear gas.