Cayle Tern, a Reynolds School District board director whose family resettled in Portland from Laos when he was a child and who championed the city’s Southeast Asian immigrant community, died last week of a heart attack. He was 49.
Tern recently jumped in to advocate for Oregonians at risk of deportation by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, especially after federal agents increasingly targeted Laotian immigrants here and across the country.
“Suddenly, after decades of building their lives here, community members are being separated from their families, some without any warning,” Tern told The Oregonian/OregonLive by email less than a month before his death. “The community members they are detaining are parents, neighbors, volunteers, coworkers, that contribute to our communities in countless ways.”…