SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to pardon a 50-year-old queer man from being deported to Fiji after he was released from prison and shown great remorse for committing second-degree murder.Salesh ("Sal") Prasad, who is being represented in his deportation case by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, will likely be persecuted in his homeland because of his sexual orientation, the supervisors' resolution stated. "If I’m deported, I won’t survive.
I won’t make it in Fji," he told The Guardian in June while speaking from an ICE facility in the Central Valley. "There’s no protection there for me.
There’s no support. I’d be forced to be somebody I’m not. I don’t want to hide again. I should be able to love who I want to love."MORE: California man who served 25 years poised to be deported to CambodiaAccording to the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, Prasad was a victim of domestic violence and sexual abuse as a child, and the trauma pushed him to numb himself with alcohol and drugs and seek protection from gang members.
At age 22, he killed a man during an argument, a crime for which he served 27 years in prison.Last year, he was granted parole.