A longstanding agreement with the nation of Vietnam allows Vietnamese refugees who fled the horrors and aftermath of the Vietnam War to continue to stay in the U.S. without threat of deportation. However, the Trump administration wants to put an end to that deal and send approximately 5,000 refugees back to Vietnam.
The affected individuals have spent much or most of their lives in the U.S. and consider it their home, the land where their children were born. Their memories of Vietnam are that of horror and they have no ties to return to. The Trump admin is fine with sending them back, though, because its base loves seeing non-white people kicked out of the country and they're specifically targeting those who have some sort of criminal record.
As Congressional Democrats have pointed out, many of these people committed crimes soon after being put in bad neighborhoods with no support, resources, or therapy from dealing with war. They served their sentences and then became good community members and shouldn't be suddenly ejected decades later on a racist president's whims.
We encourage the Trump administration in the strongest of terms not to kick out these refugees.
The United States was intrinsically involved in the war and making Vietnam an uninhabitable place for so many that fled. The least we can do is to continue to offer a home to those who made their way here during that period.
