Chai goes back to work after being freed on parole

By Curtis Lum
and Yasmin Anwar
Advertiser Staff Writers

Popular Thai chef Chai Chaowasaree was freed on parole yesterday afternoon and back at work at his Aloha Tower Marketplace restaurant three hours later.

Glad to be released from detention, Chai Chaowasaree visited his restaurant at Aloha Tower Marketplace yesterday. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"At first I thought they might send me to the Mainland because I heard the prison is very crowded. But I thank God they did not and released me," he said.

Chai, dressed in an aloha shirt and covered with lei, relaxed last night at his Chai's Bistro bar with two friends. Just hours earlier, he wore a green OCCC uniform and was housed with 50 other inmates.

The 39-year-old owner of Chai's Island Bistro at Aloha Tower and Singha Thai in Waikiki was in high spirits after more than five weeks in jail.

He had been in custody under jurisdiction of the Immigration and Naturalization Service since Feb. 13. His case had received widespread attention and debate over whether he should be allowed Ü as a successful businessman and noted contributor to the community Ü to remain in the country.

Chai has been fighting deportation since 1991 when the INS determined that his 1985 marriage to a Big Island woman was fraudulent, and moved to deport him. His problems were compounded when he left the United States to visit his ailing father in Thailand. Upon his return, INS officials told him he had voided his appeal and violated the terms of his residency. Chai countered that INS officials at Honolulu airport led him to believe he could return on a temporary alien registration card.

He said last night that immigration officials picked him up at OCCC at about 3 p.m. yesterday.

Despite being jailed at since February, Chai said he has no hard feelings against anyone.

"I told people in Bible study that everything happens for a reason. I didn't feel that I did anything wrong, but I said, 'Well, this is what God wanted for me.'"

Chai said he took part in prison Bible study each night and got along fine with the other inmates. He said everyone treated him "very, very nice."

"The first day I didn't know what to expect so the first night, that was the first time I was ever in jail, and I felt a little bit intimidated because you don't really know what's going to happen to you," Chai said. "But after you stay there for a few days, everything is a routine."

Immediately following his release, Chai visited his sister at Singha Thai. Afterward he went home to freshen up and was at Chai's Bistro by dinner time.

"The whole time that I was in (prison) the most concern I had was my business," Chai said. "I knew my staff was working very, very hard, and I knew I couldn't make it without them, so the first thing that I wanted to do was see them. I wanted to make sure that they knew I appreciated all the things that they did."

With a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on his deportation challenge unlikely until after mid-May, INS district director Donald Radcliffe was given the go-ahead from INS headquarters in Washington, D.C., to consider releasing Chai.

Immigration officials yesterday said Chai never was considered a flight risk, but that the law required his detention pending a decision on his appeal. That changed when the higher court took on the case and indicated that it would not have a decision within 90 days of his incarceration, INS officials said. Federal law mandates release if an appeal isn't completed within that period.