California Governor Gavin Newsom pardoned an illegal immigrant convicted of attempted murder, assault with a semi-automatic firearm, and conspiracy to commit assault with a firearm, effectively shielding him from deportation. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the pardon allows Somboon Phaymany to reopen immigration proceedings rather than be removed from the country.
Phaymany was sentenced in 1997 to 14 years to life. He lost his green card and was issued a final order of removal by a judge in 2019. Newsom signed the pardon in December 2025.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not mince words.
Governor Newsom pardoning an illegal alien convicted of attempted murder, so he can remain in our country is absolute INSANITY.
McLaughlin added that Newsom's pardon "took away this attempted murderer's qualifying convictions that made him removable from the U.S." In other words, a governor used his clemency power to override a federal immigration judge's final order. A man, a court determined should be removed from the country, will now remain in California communities because Sacramento decided it knew better.
Newsom's office tried to frame this as a story about redemption. The governor wrote in the pardon notice:
This act of clemency for Mr. Phaymany does not minimize or forgive his conduct or the harm it caused. It does recognize the work he has done since to transform himself.
According to the New York Post, the administration pointed to a set of mitigating details: Phaymany was 19 at the time of his conviction, described as a passenger in a car that pulled into a parking lot and confronted a group of rival gang members 30 years ago, and was not the shooter. He was discharged from parole with a perfect record in 2023, is now the primary caretaker for his elderly parents, and volunteers with his Buddhist and Unitarian church communities while mentoring at-risk youth.
None of that changes the underlying conviction. A jury heard the facts and found Phaymany guilty of attempted murder, among other charges. A judge sentenced him to 14 years to life. Another judge issued a final removal order. The legal system spoke clearly, twice. Newsom overruled both.
When pressed, Newsom's office told critics to "spare us the outrage." Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo went further:
The same people who turned the pardon power into a rewards program for political loyalists and the rich don't get to lecture anyone about clemency.
She described California's clemency process as "a transparent, rigorous legal process focused on individualized review of each applicant's rehabilitation and public safety considerations." The governor's press office also posted a statement on X, invoking Lent:
During this Lenten season — a time of repentance and forgiveness — we will continue to take our cues from religious leaders, not those who claim Christian nationalism but can't tell Peter from Paul.
This is the playbook in miniature. When confronted with the substance of a decision, deflect to the process. When the process fails to convince, pivot to moral superiority. When moral superiority rings hollow, reach for scripture. None of it addresses the central question: why should a governor's pardon power override a federal removal order for an illegal immigrant convicted of attempted murder?
Crofts-Pelayo's swipe at other pardons is a classic misdirection. The debate is not about the pardon power in the abstract. It is about this pardon, for this individual, with this specific consequence: preventing federal immigration enforcement from carrying out a lawful deportation order.
This pardon did not happen in a vacuum. It arrived against the backdrop of an escalating standoff between California's sanctuary apparatus and federal immigration enforcement.
Earlier this month, ICE sent a letter to Newsom and the state attorney general urging them to stop sanctuary policies that allow criminal illegal immigrants to walk out of jails and back onto the streets. The letter asked whether California would comply with immigration detainers, which are requests to local law enforcement to hold an illegal immigrant who is about to be released from custody after an arrest or upon completion of a sentence.
The federal government alleges that California has released at least 4,500 illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds back into communities. McLaughlin connected the pardon directly to this broader defiance:
These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his sanctuary politicians are protecting. He is putting the lives of all Americans at risk.
Phaymany's case had the backing of multiple elected officials, including Monica Montgomery Steppe, Paloma Aguirre, Terra Lawson-Remer, Sean Elo-Rivera, and Jose Rodriguez. The political infrastructure supporting this kind of clemency is not one rogue governor acting alone. It is a coordinated effort by California's political class to place itself between illegal immigrants and federal law enforcement.
It is worth being precise about the mechanism here. Phaymany had a final order of removal. That order existed because his convictions made him removable under federal immigration law. By pardoning those convictions, Newsom did not simply forgive a man who had served his time. He removed the legal basis for deportation. The pardon functioned as an end-run around federal immigration authority.
This is not clemency in any traditional sense. Traditional clemency restores rights to citizens who have demonstrated rehabilitation. This pardon was designed, by its own terms, to achieve an immigration outcome: keeping an illegal immigrant in the country despite a federal judge's order that he leave.
The distinction matters. A governor pardoning a citizen who served decades and turned his life around is one conversation. A governor strategically deploying clemency to nullify federal immigration enforcement is something else entirely. California has turned the pardon pen into a sanctuary tool.
Phaymany applied for executive clemency early last year, and Newsom granted it. If this stands as a viable path, the implications extend well beyond one case. Any illegal immigrant in California with qualifying convictions making them removable could, in theory, petition for a pardon and have those convictions wiped clean for immigration purposes. The governor's office becomes a one-man asylum board, accountable to no federal authority.
The left spent years arguing that immigration enforcement should target criminals, not families. That was always the talking point: deport the dangerous ones, leave the rest alone. Now, a Democratic governor has pardoned a man convicted of attempted murder to prevent exactly that enforcement. The stated principle collapsed the moment it became inconvenient.
Federal courts ordered this man removed. A governor said no. That is not clemency. That is nullification.
