T

he Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) has called on the United States government to allow about 2,000 Chinese-Indonesians who fled the 1998 riots in Indonesia to stay in the US, saying they have reason to fear another persecution in their home country.

“The Indonesian government has not been directly responsible for physical violence toward Chinese-Indonesian Christians since 1998. However, persons from these ethnic and religious groups continue to be targeted in Indonesia because of identity politics,” the group said in a statement.

LBH Jakarta said that the political climate following the highly sectarian Jakarta gubernatorial election, which featured an incumbent Chinese-Indonesian and Christian candidate, reignited negative sentiments toward Chinese-Indonesians.

“Taking into account the current political climate in Indonesia, Chinese-Indonesian Christian groups abroad have objective and reasonable grounds to gain international protection,” it said.

Previously, Reuters reported that around 2,000 Chinese-Indonesians who fled to New Hampshire, US, to escape the 1998 riots were at risk of being deported by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would purge the country of millions of illegal immigrants. Since he moved into the White House in January, immigration arrests have tripled since the start of the year to an average of 142 people a day.

On Monday, Reuters reported that New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu publicly called on Trump to halt an effort to deport 69 Indonesian Christians who fled violence two decades ago and are living illegally in the state.

The group had been living near the state’s coast under the terms of a 2010 deal worked out with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allowed them to remain so long as they handed in their passports and turned up for regular check-ins with immigration officials.

That changed starting in August when members of the group who arrived for scheduled meetings with ICE officials at the agency’s office in Manchester, New Hampshire, were told to buy one-way plane tickets back to Indonesia, which they fled after the riots that left about 1,000 people dead.

“I am respectfully requesting that your administration reconsider its decision to deport these individuals, and I urge a resolution that will allow them to remain in the United States,” Sununu said in a letter to Trump dated Friday, which his office made public on Monday.

Several members of the group, who are all ethnic Chinese, told Reuters they fear that they would face discrimination or violence if they returned to the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Most of the group entered the US legally on tourist visas following the riots, which erupted at the start of the Asian financial crisis. They overstayed their visas and failed to apply for asylum on time, but have been allowed to live openly under the accord with ICE, negotiated with the help of US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat.