Senators seek to stem deportation of Southeast Asian refugees

Senators Kamala Harris, left, and Mazie Hirono.

SENATORS Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., on Jan. 4 led a group of  senators in urging Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen to re-examine her department’s “arbitrary detention and deportation” of many long-term U.S. residents from Southeast Asia, including those who fled war and genocide.

Sen.Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, the third Asian American senator. was also among the 15 signers.

Hirono and Harris, both members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, noted with particular concern that the Trump Administration’s targeting of Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the country prior to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam in 1995 violates a 2008 repatriation agreement between the two countries. The agreement provided legal protection for hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees who fled to the U.S. following the Vietnam War.

“In Fiscal Year 2018, there was an increase in deportations of Southeast Asian immigrants with more than 350 Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese immigrants who were ordered to be deported,” the senators wrote. “Those processed for deportation by the Trump Administration’s recent, aggressive deportation efforts include legal permanent residents who have lived in the United States for decades after fleeing violence and genocide in their home countries.

“We urge you to reexamine policies on the arbitrary detention and deportation of Southeast Asian immigrants who prove no threat to public safety, are interwoven into our communities, and support United States citizen families.”

Several leading justice and advocacy groups have spoken out against the administration’s actions, including the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Vietnamese Anti-Deportation Network, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), AAJC Atlanta, and AAJC Chicago. Hawaii is home to more than 140,000 foreign-born residents from Southeast Asia.

Also signing the letters were Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jack Reed, D- R.I., Ed Markey, D-Mass), Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Tim Kaine, D-Va.

The full text of the letter follows:

“We write to express our deep concern about recent reports that the Trump Administration is pursuing the deportation of many long-term U.S. residents who emigrated from Southeast Asian countries, including lawful permanent residents from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

“We are particularly troubled by the administration’s reported efforts to deport Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the country before the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam on July 12, 1995, in clear violation of the 2008 repatriation agreement between the countries.

“In Fiscal Year 2018, there was an increase in deportations of Southeast Asian immigrants with more than 350 Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese immigrants who were ordered to be deported. Those processed for deportation by the Trump Administration’s recent, aggressive deportation efforts include legal permanent residents who have lived in the United States for decades after fleeing violence and genocide in their home countries.

“Upon arriving in the United States, many found themselves in struggling neighborhoods. While most made the best of their new circumstances, a small subset made mistakes and entered the criminal justice system. Some of these mistakes date back to when they were teenagers and young adults. They have served their time and have been out of the criminal justice system for decades.

“The detention and deportation of these lawful permanent residents effectively re-punishes them and ignores ways they may have transformed their lives to become productive community members, business owners, and loving parents supporting their families.

“As noted, the administration’s efforts to deport pre-July 1995 Vietnamese immigrants is particularly troubling. The United States and Vietnam entered into a repatriation agreement in 2008. The agreement takes into account the long and complex history between the two countries and provides a level of protection for the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese immigrants who fled their home country to seek refuge in the United States in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

“Many of those who fled were South Vietnamese citizens who had fought alongside or otherwise supported the United States during this conflict. Accordingly, the agreement makes clear that Vietnamese immigrants ‘are not subject to return to Vietnam under this Agreement if they arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, the date of which diplomatic relations were re-established between the U.S. government and the Vietnamese government.’

“Recent reports suggest that the Trump Administration unilaterally interpreted the 2008 agreement in the spring of 2017 to enable it to deport certain Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the United States before July 1995 — despite the agreement’s clear terms. We understand that the Department of Homeland Security is again relying on this faulty interpretation to detain Vietnamese immigrants who arrived prior to July 1995 and process them for removal.

“It is troubling to see Southeast Asian families being targeted in this way. We urge you to re-examine policies on the arbitrary detention and deportation of Southeast Asian immigrants who prove no threat to public safety, are interwoven into our communities, and support United States citizen families. Your agency’s finite resources should not be wasted to tear families apart and deport individuals who have transformed their lives after serving their sentences.

“We further urge you to restore the protections provided by the 2008 U.S.-Vietnam repatriation agreement and stop the deportation of Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the country prior to July 12, 1995.”
________________________________________________________________________________

Vietnamese refugees, threatened with deportation, file suit vs. ICE

Phi Nguyen, left, litigation director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta represents Vietnamese refugees.

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES have filed a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging their detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  

Since March 2017, ICE began picking up dozens of Vietnamese refugees and subjecting them to prolonged and indefinite detention in violation of federal law. Many of them were young children or teenagers when they came to the United States fleeing profound hardship and political persecution. Between 8,000 and 10,000 Vietnamese Americans are at risk of being similarly detained. 

The lawsuit was filed on Feb. 22 in Santa Ana, Calif. by civil rights organizations Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Atlanta (Advancing Justice-Atlanta), Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Los Angeles (Advancing Justice-LA),  and Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Asian Law Caucus (Advancing Justice-ALC), along with law firms Reed Smith LLP and Davis Adams, LLC. 

“The Vietnamese/Americans whom the U.S. government is trying to force back to Vietnam are the same refugees who fled war and crippling re-education camps to pursue the promise of peace and freedom. Unfortunately, the current U.S. administration’s actions against these Vietnamese refugees do not uphold that promise,” said Phi Nguyen, Litigation Director at Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

“By detaining refugees without due process, ICE is acting illegally and arbitrarily, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes similar to the one in Vietnam. The courts must step in to affirm the rule of law. That’s what this lawsuit seeks to do.” 

Under the Trump administration, ICE has moved to arrest and detain Vietnamese war refugees who are U.S. residents but are living under removal orders triggered by a criminal conviction.

ICE is unable to deport them because Vietnam, under a 2008 repatriation agreement with the United States, will not take back war refugees—defined as those who came to the United States to escape persecution before July 12, 1995, when the U.S.-Vietnam relationship started to normalize.

After Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2017 sharply expanding immigration enforcement, ICE began to make widespread arrests of immigrants from Vietnam, as well as Cambodia, Somalia, Iraq and other countries that historically do not repatriate their U.S. emigrants, according to the complaint. (Similar national class actions have been filed on behalf of those other countries’ populations.)

However, in 2017, ICE officers began picking up previously released immigrants and holding them for prolonged periods of time, despite the inability of ICE to carry out their deportation. This prolonged detention of Vietnamese refugees violates federal law and breaks apart families without serving a legitimate purpose.  

“Indefinite detention of immigrants is both unlawful and inhumane,” said Anoop Prasad, Staff Attorney at Advancing Justice-ALC. “Each day causes untold harm to the people in detention and their families." 

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the potential class action.

The transition for Vietnamese refugees who resettled in the U.S. in the years following the Vietnam War was not easy. Due to ad hoc resettlement practices, they were often placed in resource-poor and economically deteriorating neighborhoods. Under the challenging conditions, some made mistakes leading to criminal convictions which made them targets for deportation. 

“This administration is recklessly disregarding our Constitution and laws as it continues its war on immigrants,” said Christopher Lapinig, Registered Legal Services Attorney at Advancing Justice-Los Angeles. “The actions taken by ICE only re-traumatize families from a community that already knows trauma all too well.”  

  

“Reed Smith LLP is honored to serve as pro bono counsel alongside Asian American Advancing Justice and its affiliates to protect the constitutional due process rights of the Vietnamese community residing in the United States,” said Tuan Uong, Senior Associate at Reed Smith. 

“Nearly all of those detained have U.S. citizen spouses, children, parents, or other relatives who rely on them for support. The United States is the only home they know,” said Uong.

_______________________________________________________________________________