O udone Lothirath was just a child when he arrived in the United States as a Laotian refugee in the early 1980s, in search of a better life. But some 45 years later, while he was supposed to be undergoing life-extending chemotherapy for his terminal Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Lothirath found himself languishing in a federal immigration detention facility. His loved ones now say that missing vital chemotherapy sessions in January cut the 57-year-old’s life even shorter, and he is now on his deathbed, receiving hospice care. “He was responding quite well to the chemo,” Lothirath’s friend and care assistant, Christina Vilay, said. “He probably had another good year.” Vilay spoke to The Independent in a phone interview Friday from her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she and her husband are caring for Lothirath in his final days. Too sick to speak, Lothirath listened in on the call with Vilay at his bedside.…