A Korean-born researcher and longtime U.S. legal permanent resident has spent the past week detained by immigration officials at San Francisco International Airport without explanation and has been denied access to an attorney, according to his lawyer.
Tae Heung “Will” Kim, 40, has lived in the United States since he was 5 and is a green-card holder pursuing his PhD at Texas A&M University, where he is researching a vaccine for Lyme disease, said his attorney, Eric Lee. Immigration officials detained Kim at a secondary screening point July 21 after he returned from a two-week visit to South Korea for his younger brother’s wedding.
Lee said the government has not told him or Kim’s family why it detained Kim, and immigration officials have refused to let Kim speak to an attorney or communicate with his family members directly except for a brief call to his mother Friday. In 2011, Kim faced a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas, Lee said, but he fulfilled a community service requirement and successfully petitioned for nondisclosure to seal the offense from the public record.
“If a green card holder is convicted of a drug offense, violating their status, that person is issued a Notice to Appear and CBP coordinates detention space with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said Tuesday in a statement to The Washington Post. “This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”
Aside from a brief phone call, the only other contact Kim’s family has had with him is through what they believe to be secondhand text messages — probably an immigration official texting them from Kim’s phone in his presence. When relatives asked via text if Kim is sleeping on the floor or if the lights remain on all day, Lee said, the reply from Kim’s phone read: “Don’t worry about it.”
When Lee asked a CBP supervisor in a phone call if the Fifth and Sixth amendments — which establish rights to due process and the right to counsel — applied to Kim, the supervisor replied “no,” according to Lee.
“If the Constitution doesn’t apply to somebody who’s lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder — and only left the country for a two-week vacation — that means [the government] is basically arguing that the Constitution doesn’t apply to anybody who’s been in this country for less time than him,” Lee said Monday.
Representatives for CBP and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about the supervisor’s alleged comment about Kim’s constitutional rights.
President Donald Trump has made aggressive immigration enforcement a signature of his second term, promising to root out violent criminals who are in the country without authorization. But the crackdowns have in practice swept up undocumented immigrants with little or no criminal history, as well as documented immigrants, like Kim, who hold valid visas or green cards.
Lee, the attorney, said that with no details from immigration officials or direct access to Kim, he and Kim’s family could only speculate on the reason he was detained, though Lee had believed it is probably tied to the 2011 drug charge. But immigration law has a long-established waiver process that allows officials to overlook certain minor crimes that would otherwise threaten a legal permanent resident’s status. Lee said Kim easily meets the criteria for a waiver.
“Why detain him when he’s got this waiver that is available to him?” Lee said.
Other foreign-born researchers detained by the Trump administration have included scholars accused of being “national security threats” because they expressed views opposing U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. In another case, a Russian-born researcher studying at Harvard University was charged for allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the country.
At Texas A&M, Kim’s primary research has focused on finding a vaccine for Lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria spread through tick bites. He began his doctoral studies there in summer 2021 after earning a bachelor’s degree in ocean engineering from the university in 2007, Texas A&M said in a statement to The Post.
As Kim’s family waits for answers, his mother, Yehoon “Sharon” Lee, said she worries about his health and if he’s eating well — “mother’s concerns,” she said through an interpreter.
“I’m most concerned about his medical condition. He’s had asthma ever since he was younger,” Sharon Lee added. “I don’t know if he has enough medication. He carries an inhaler, but I don’t know if it’s enough, because he’s been there a week.”
Sharon Lee, 65, and her husband came to the U.S. on business visas in the 1980s, and she eventually became a naturalized citizen. But by then, Kim and his younger brother had aged out of the automatic citizenship benefit for minor children whose parents are naturalized. The brothers are legal permanent residents and have spent most of their lives in the United States.
“He’s a good son, very gentle,” Sharon Lee said of Tae Heung Kim, noting that he is a hard worker and known for checking on his neighbors. After his father died of cancer, Kim stepped up to help take care of his mother and the family’s doll-manufacturing business.
After more than three decades in the U.S., Sharon Lee said her son’s predicament has saddened and surprised her.
“I immigrated here to the States — I thought I understood it was a country of equal rights where the Constitution applies equally,” she said.
She still believes the U.S. is a country of opportunity and second chances. But she said vulnerable immigrants must learn about immigration law to protect themselves. In her son’s case, that was the hotline at the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, an advocacy group for Koreans and Asian Americans.
Eric Lee, Kim’s attorney, said there’s a dark irony to the Trump administration’s detention of someone like him.
“This is somebody whose research is going to save countless lives if allowed to continue — farmers who are at risk of getting Lyme disease,” Lee said. “Trump always talks about how much he loves the great farmers of America. Well, Tae is somebody who can save farmers’ lives.”
