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Tin Nguyen stepped outside the prison, fell to his knees, and thanked God for his second chance.

For the first time in nearly 23 years, Nguyen was a free man.

His sisters ran to him. When they met, between his tears, Nguyen had something to say:

“I apologized for what I have put them through,” he said. “I want to make amends.”

That was on Monday, Sept. 28, the day he walked out of an immigration detention center in Adelanto. But Nguyen’s recent freedom doesn’t signal an end to the story.

Freedom or deportation

A convicted murderer who served 21 years for his crime, Nguyen’s life sentence was commuted by former Gov. Jerry Brown on Christmas Eve, 2018. But a year later, as he was set to be paroled out of Lancaster prison, he was picked up by agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

Because Nguyen had committed his crimes when he was a lawful U.S. resident, and not a citizen, the federal government was – and is –hoping to send him back to Vietnam, a country he last saw as a 6-year-old. Instead of going free late last year, 2019, Nguyen was sent to to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center to await deportation.

Ben Seelig, Nguyen’s attorney, said his client is an unlikely candidate for deportation. Seelig cited a 2008 diplomatic agreement between the United States and Vietnam that protects Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the U.S. before 1995 from repatriation. Nguyen, now 47, arrived in the U.S. in 1979 and falls under that protection, Seelig argued.

Last month, Seelig filed a petition in federal court arguing that the government was violating Nguyen’s constitutional right to due process, detaining him past the legal limit that forbids indefinite civil detention.

The government did not contest his petition, leading immigration officials on Monday to release Nguyen into a supervised setting.

Nguyen’s sisters took him to a transitional house in Los Angeles, where he is required to live for at least six months under conditions of his parole.

Nguyen has a lot of people supporting him, including professors at Cal State Los Angeles, two Southern California Congressmen, Santa Ana Councilman Vicente Sarmiento and several non-profit organizations.

They argue that Nguyen is a changed person from the young man who got involved in Pomona and L.A. Vietnamese gangs and killed a jeweler during a 1996 robbery gone bad in San Jose.

His release is a win for those who argue for second chances and against immigrant detention.

It also offers immigrant-rights advocates an opportunity to call out the U.S. government on the 2008 U.S.-Vietnam agreement against sending back early Vietnamese refugees.

“I was proud to lead a letter to the Acting Secretary of DHS advocating for Mr. Nguyen’s immediate release and I am glad that he can now return to his family and his life. He should never have been taken into custody after his parole,” Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, wrote in a statement.

Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, said that Nguyen “made some bad decisions but has paid his debt to society.”

Tracy La, executive director of the non-profit VietRise, said her group got involved in calling for Nguyen’s release because “immigration enforcement and detention is an issue that deeply impacts Vietnamese communities, but it has been overlooked for a long time in Orange County.

“We believe that ICE should not double punish or terrorize people in immigrant communities by detaining them,” she said. “We also believe that we all need to embrace and honor human rights, second chances, and due process for all as a society.”

“Vietnamese communities,” she added, “need to continue to be part of ongoing conversations regarding deportation and immigration enforcement in Orange County.”

RELATED: Vietnamese American felon saw his sentence commuted, won parole, now faces deportation

Supporters say Nguyen has rehabilitated himself through the years as a model prisoner, a volunteer who trained therapy dogs for military veterans, and as a student at Cal State L.A., where he’s only a few courses short of a bachelor’s degree in communications. Among those who recommended clemency were a prison warden and other correctional staff members, according to court documents.

Those who opposed his release include the family of Stanko Vuckovik, the man he killed in 1996 during a botched armed robbery.

Nguyen choked up when he recalled the parole hearing, when Vuckovik’s family members spoke out against his release. He said he understood their feelings, and could not expect the family’s forgiveness.

“What I did was horrible,” he said. “I take responsibility for everything I’ve done.”

Nguyen said he can’t change the past. Instead, he said he hopes to  contribute to the communities “that I took so much from.”

His goal is to remain in Los Angeles, close to Cal State, so he can complete his bachelor’s and then go for higher degrees. He also wants to do volunteer work, both as a therapy dog trainer and to share his experiences with younger people.

“If I can help one youth to not make one fatal mistake, then I saved two lives, his life and another life, and save their families from heartbreak.”

Meanwhile, he’s had job offers but first must get a job permit. And while he’s currently wearing an ankle monitor, and is restricted to staying in the transitional house with other long-time former prisoners, he’s looking forward to seeing his 84-year-old mother in Chino Hills.

“She said that, from now on, there’s going to be no more tears, only smiles,” Nguyen said.

After so many years of incarceration, Nguyen is catching up. He’s learning how to use a cell phone. On Thursday, he cooked his first meal: eggs and bacon. This week, he saw his first sunrise, and his first outdoor sunset, in decades.

“I took my first deep morning clean breath,” he said.

Limbo

While he’s making plans for his future, there’s something that has yet to be settled – whether he can stay in the U.S.

Alexxis Pons Abascal, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman in Los Angeles, said Friday that Nguyen remains subject to “a final order of removal” and faces deportation. Green card holders like Nguyen may be deported if convicted of multiple crimes and ordered removed by an immigration judge. Nguyen received such an order on Jan. 14.

But it’s unclear whether immigration officials will be able procure travel documents from Vietnam due to the 2008 agreement, Seelig said.

So Nguyen is free. But he remains in limbo.