Thousands of Vietnamese immigrants will be deported from the US

AtlanticThe Trump administration is renewing efforts to deport a growing number of Vietnamese Americans, many of whom arrived during the war, despite an agreement between the two countries, the U.S. said on Dec. 12. Vietnamese who arrived before the two countries normalized diplomatic relations on July 12, 1995, are eligible for deportation under expanded immigration laws.

This is the latest move in the White House’s policy of tightening immigration and asylum laws. In August, the US government withdrew the plan before unilaterally reinterpreting the regulations again.

Washington and Hanoi signed an agreement in 2008 that said Vietnamese who arrived in the United States before the normalization of relations would not be sent back. But since last year, Washington has begun arresting and threatening to deport many long-time immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries whom the government has accused of being “violent foreign criminals.”

"Although the procedures related to this special agreement do not apply to Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, it does not explicitly preclude deportation of pre-1995 cases," a US State Department official toldQuartz.

The controversial reinterpretation of the agreement would put thousands of Vietnamese who have lived in the United States for decades at risk of deportation. A State Department spokesman confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security met with representatives of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington but declined to provide details on when or what the discussions were.

When asked about the issue, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Katie Waldman referred only to immigrants with criminal records.

"We have 5,000 criminally prosecuted individuals from Vietnam with orders of removal," she said. "These individuals are not U.S. citizens, were arrested, prosecuted by previous administrations, and ultimately ordered removed by a federal immigration judge. The administration's priority is to remove criminal aliens to their home countries." However, Ms. Waldman did not clarify whether the new policy would apply to law-abiding Vietnamese immigrants.

Tania Pham, a Vietnamese-American immigration lawyer, said that more than 8,000 Vietnamese people who came to the US before 1995 have deportation orders. They are still in the US under the 2008 agreement. Many Vietnamese people who came to the US before 1995 did not object to the government's deportation orders because they believed they were not in this category, but in fact, earlier this year, more than 10 people were sent back to Vietnam.