In May last year, somewhere over the Pacific, Khamphat Paneboun became a man without a country. Paneboun, a 43-year-old from Amarillo, Texas, was an involuntary passenger on a charter flight as it headed westwards from Guam. It was the first time he had been outside America since arriving in Sacramento, California, as a child refugee in 1990. His hands and feet were shackled together. He was about to be dumped in Laos, a country he had never been to. 

Paneboun’s old life ended abruptly on February 21st 2025, a Friday. He had taken the day off work for a family trip to Dallas Zoo to celebrate his son Kendrick’s tenth birthday. His wife, Jasmine, knew that their four children would beg for stuffed animals at the gift shop, and that Paneboun would give in. He loved to spoil his kids. There were huge hauls at Christmas, and whenever the fair rolled into Amarillo he would splurge on rides and deep-fried confections.

It was a six-hour drive from their home to Dallas; the Panebouns had set off the evening before and stayed in a budget hotel. On the morning of the 21st they all piled into the family’s Toyota truck—Kendrick rode up front on the bench seat. But before they could go and see the elephants Paneboun needed to make a quick stop at Dallas’s immigration office for his annual check-in, a procedure that for the past 17 years had been entirely routine.