Foreign Journalists At Us-backed Media Fear Being Sent To Repressive Homelands After Trump's Cuts

After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia.

But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the U.S. are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own .

"It fell out of sky," Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration's decision, which he says threatens to upend his life.

"I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news," Hour said, also through a translator.

Both men said they're worried about providing for their families and being allowed to stay in the U.S. They say it's impossible to return to Cambodia, a single-party state hostile to independent media where they fear being persecuted for their journalistic work.