Vietnamese refugees fear deportation as Trump Administration discusses new deal with Vietnam

Thousands of Vietnamese immigrants who fled to the United States prior to 1995 and committed even minor crimes could be sent back to Vietnam if the Trump Administration renegotiates an agreement that’s protected their residency status for more than a decade.

News of the potential change — reported Wednesday by the Atlantic magazine — sparked harsh criticism from lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento.

It also sent shock waves through Little Saigon and other Vietnamese-American neighborhoods in Southern California, where some people switched from making Christmas plans to coming up with contingency plans for their families in case they’re deported during the holidays.

“Their lives have been turned upside down,” said Tung Nguyen, a Santa Ana activist, referring to people in his community who have lived in the United States for decades.

“This is a major human rights violation, and I just hope we can stop it.”

Many of the immigrants who might be targeted were children or teenagers when they were brought to the United States by their parents. Many arrived with limited English language skills and few resources, some traumatized by the Vietnam War. At least some of the new arrivals were children of American soldiers or had fathers who fought for the South Vietnamese military. Some never became citizens because they ran afoul of the law.

Recognizing those complex circumstances, the United States under George W. Bush in 2008 signed a repatriation agreement with Vietnam that blocks deportation of Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. before July 12, 1995 — the date the two countries reestablished diplomatic relations.

In keeping with President Donald Trump’s immigration platform, federal authorities last year deported 71 Vietnamese immigrants — double the number of Vietnamese deportations recorded in 2016. This year’s figure includes 11 people who came to the United States before 1995, according to civil rights groups. Vietnam could have blocked those 11 refugees, as part of the 2008 agreement, but apparently chose not to.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year also began detaining Vietnamese immigrants with criminal records even if they arrived before 1995. In February, immigration rights groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government over those detentions, and in October ICE acknowledged it couldn’t hold those immigrants without a lawful path to deportation.

But last week, the Vietnamese Anti-Deportation Network got a tip that the Department of Homeland Security planned to renegotiate terms of the 2008 agreement with Vietnam, in talks that were supposed to start Dec. 9.

“It’s a priority of this administration to remove criminal aliens to their home country,” Katie Waldman, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said via email Thursday when asked about potential changes to the agreement.

Waldman said more than 7,000 Vietnamese immigrants with past criminal convictions now have final orders of removal from the United States. But she didn’t respond to questions about changes to the repatriation agreement, or offer any estimate about what percentage of those 7,000 immigrants came to the United States before 1995.

While there aren’t geographic breakdowns for potential deportees, Orange County has the country’s largest population of Vietnamese immigrants, concentrated around its Little Saigon community in Westminster.

“They are veterans, business owners, community leaders, and most importantly, Americans,” said state Senator Tom Umberg, who last month was elected to represent the area that includes much of Little Saigon.

“I am committed to do everything I can to protect those who sought to live the American dream.”

Until a few weeks ago, Tung Nguyen would have been among the population at risk for deportation.

In 1994, when he was 16, Nguyen was sentenced to life in prison for standing by while his friend stabbed a man to death. After Nguyen helped save dozens of civilians during a prison riot, Gov. Jerry Brown granted him early release in 2011. Last month, Nguyen received a full pardon.

“I’m still a little bit worried,” he said.

But Nguyen added he’s more worried for the other Vietnamese immigrants who got “caught up in stupid stuff” when they were young, have paid their debts to society, built their lives in America and now face deportation to a country they often don’t remember.

Nguyen and others also noted that the Vietnamese government might not welcome immigrants from the United States and could persecute them based on their status.

“They’re being sent to a country where their fathers fought against the current regime,” said Linda Trinh Vo, a professor at UC Irvine who focuses on Asian American studies.

“That raises very real safety issues.”

More than a dozen community organizations and more than 50 elected officials from nine states on Wednesday signed onto letters sent to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump. The letters urge the trio to “honor the humanitarian spirit and intention embodied in the current agreement.”

Legislators from across California and the nation began issuing statements of protest Thursday. And an online petition opposing changes to the agreement has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures.

“We cannot change these promises now that these people have families here,” wrote one man who signed the petition.

For Vietnamese refugees to get a picture of what might happen if their pre-1995 protections are removed, they don’t have to look any further than their Cambodian neighbors.

No such safe date exists for Cambodian refugees who left their country in the wake of the Khmer Rouge massacre. Over the past two years, ICE has detained and deported dozens of Cambodian immigrants — some with only minor criminal records — from Cambodian enclaves, such as Long Beach.

A plane carrying 46 Cambodian immigrants with criminal records is set to depart from El Paso, Texas on Monday, according to attorney Kevin Lo, who works with the Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s Asian Law Caucus.

Lo said he represents one of those passengers, a San Diego man who was convicted of burglary 20 years ago. The man served his time, and Lo noted that non-violent burglary is no longer considered a deportable offense in California. But the 40-year-old father of three, whose wife is pregnant, is set to be sent back to Cambodia.

The criminal histories of past Cambodian deportees have ranged from immigrants convicted of murder to a woman arrested for passing a bad check for $200, Lo said.

“While (Trump’s) outward rhetoric is focused on Latino immigrants, and people at the border, really he has been waging a quiet war against Southeast Asians,” said Jessica Jinn with the Los Angeles chapter of Advancing Justice.

When asked about the change in policy involving Vietnamese immigrants, Waldman with Homeland Security touted the increased number of countries that now agree to take back deportees. In May 2016, she said there were 23 nations that refused to take back immigrants. Today, she said, only nine countries are on the list.