Deportation fears by Vietnamese immigrants rise

Thousands could be at risk under Trump administration plans

Thousands of Vietnamese immigrants could be at risk of deportation under a Trump administration reinterpretation of a long-standing agreement with Vietnam that largely has protected Vietnamese citizens who entered the United States before 1995.

Earlier this year, the administration unilaterally changed its interpretation of that 2008 agreement to allow deportation of Vietnamese citizens who arrived before 1995 and have been convicted of crimes. But the administration quietly backed off amid a class action lawsuit by a coalition of immigrants rights groups and a backlash that included the resignation of the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.

Now, some activists are worried that was just a temporary reprieve.

“What we have seen in the past week is that families are very afraid,” said Quyen Dinh, exec-

utive director of the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center, who grew up in San Jose. “We had a community member call just yesterday (saying) that they couldn’t sleep last night seeing the news.”

At issue is a repatriation agreement signed in 2008 by President George W. Bush that blocks deportation of Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. before July 12, 1995 — the date the two countries reestablished diplomatic relations after the 1975 end of the Vietnam War.

But this week, The Atlantic reported that the Trump administration was resuming efforts to deport Vietnamese immigrants who have lived here for decades after fleeing the Vietnam War. The reported reinterpretation would not affect immigrants who have become U.S. citizens, the magazine said.

In addition, Department of Homeland Security representatives have met with Vietnamese Embassy representatives in Washington, D.C., which advocates say signals an attempt to renegotiate the agreement.

Speaking on background, a State Department official confirmed the DHS meeting to this news organization but declined further comment. The official said the administration believes the existing repatriation agreement “does not explicitly preclude the removal of pre-1995 cases.”

It is not the first time the administration has moved to deport Vietnamese citizens from the U.S. Last year, federal authorities deported 71 Vietnamese nationals, double the number recorded in 2016. This year, 11 Vietnamese citizens who came to the U.S. before 1995 have been deported, according to civil rights groups.

“In a lot of ways, it’s not anything new. … This is a continuance of what’s been happening since 2017,” said Phi Nguyen, an attorney for the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

The heightened concern about new deportations comes just as many of Nguyen’s clients, who were released in August, have finally been able to readjust to life after detention, she said.

“Some are reminding me they’ll finally get to spend Christmas with their family, because last Christmas they were locked up in detention,” said Nguyen. “It’s something they now have to worry about, particularly around the holidays, and particularly when they finally have felt some relief.”

It’s not clear how many people would be affected if federal authorities begin deporting Vietnamese immigrants who are undocumented or who have criminal backgrounds.

Katie Waldman, a DHS spokesperson, said more than 7,000 Vietnamese immigrants with past criminal convictions now have final orders of removal from the U.S. It’s not clear how many came to the U.S. before 1995.

There are about 523,000 people born in Vietnam living in California, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Of those, about 350,000 arrived before 1995, and about 22,000 are not citizens, census data shows.

Santa Clara County has the second-highest concentration of Vietnamese people in the United States, with a population of 104,000 — 63 percent of whom came before 1995, according to census data. About 3,800 are not U.S. citizens.

Many of those immigrants now are middle-aged — about half of California’s pre-1995 Vietnamese arrivals are between the ages of 45 and 65, and 18 percent are 65 and older. The majority left as a result of the war, including former South Vietnamese army officials and people fleeing political or religious persecution.

Still, Nguyen said the 1995 cutoff date is irrelevant for some of her clients, who came to the U.S many years later but were fleeing the same risks. “It’s a divide that makes sense in some ways and in other ways is a bit arbitrary,” Nguyen said.

Civil rights groups and local elected officials already have condemned potential deportations or changes to the existing repatriation agreement.

Congress members Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, and Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, were among 26 representatives who sent a letter to Trump opposing potential deportations, noting that the original agreement recognizes humanitarian concerns and “dire circumstances” of those who fled Vietnam after the war. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and councilmembers Lan Diep, Tam Nguyen and Johnny Khamis have signed a similar letter.

To get a sense of what might happen if their pre1995 protections are removed, Vietnamese refugees can look to their former neighbors from Cambodia.

Cambodian refugees who left in the wake of the Khmer Rouge massacre have no similar protection against deportation, and dozens have been deported in the past two years, including some with minor criminal records.

On Monday, a plane carrying 46 Cambodian immigrants with criminal records is set to depart from El Paso, Texas, according to civil rights groups.

“What we have seen in the past week is that families are very afraid.” — Quyen Dinh, executive director of the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center