Ex-Prisoners Cleared to Enter U.S. : Vietnamese in O.C. Hail Pact Allowing Emigration

An agreement that would free thousands of former Vietnamese prisoners to emigrate to the United States was hailed in Orange County Monday as “a major breakthrough,� and one that could mean reunification of many families in the largest Vietnamese community in the nation.

“Yes, this is good news because we have been waiting for so long,� said Nhu Hao T. Duong, executive director for the Community Resources Opportunity Project in Santa Ana. “To us, this is a major breakthrough.�

As a result of negotiations between the United States and Vietnam, the former prisoners and their families--as many as 100,000 Vietnamese, by initial State Department accounts--may be eligible for emigration. The first 3,000 are expected to arrive in the United States by the end of the year, U.S. State Department officials announced Monday.

No details were immediately available about where the Vietnamese immigrants will be settled in the United States, but about 40% of all past refugees from the Southeast Asian nation have chosen California, and the majority of those moved to Orange County. Mostly centered in the cities of Westminster and Garden Grove, the Orange County Vietnamese community numbers close to 100,000, its leaders estimate.

But while Vietnamese community leaders in Orange County and some government officials welcomed the news, other officials tempered their enthusiasm with concern about the impact of a new wave of immigration on already-strained local government budgets.

“This is not a Westminster problem, this is a federal government problem,� said Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith regarding resettlement under the new agreement. He added that he expects few new refugees to settle in his city because housing is limited.

Monday’s agreement was worked out in negotiations between Robert L. Funseth, senior deputy secretary of state, and Vu Khoan, Vietnam’s assistant minister of foreign affairs, who met in Hanoi last week. In the joint announcement, they said the program could begin as soon as October.

They said the talks were initiated “to resolve one of the issues of mutual concern to the two countries.� That issue involved the fate of former soldiers, government officials and others who had been loyal to the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government in Saigon before it was overrun by North Vietnamese forces in 1975.

A spokesman for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said the announcement of the pact is “really good news� and is in keeping with the congressman’s efforts to give priority to the emigration of people kept in Vietnamese re-education camps.

Dornan spokesman Brian Bennett also predicted that immigrants who choose to come to Orange County will soon become productive residents.

“I think the Vietnamese community here will do as they have in the past--provide houses and jobs and whatever else they need to get on their feet themselves,� Bennett said.

But Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, whose district includes portions of Garden Grove and Westminster, said the county will need to look to the state and federal governments to assist in funding public services for any new Vietnamese immigrants. “Health care will be greatly affected,� he said, unless the county receives federal aid similar to that received in reaction to the wave of immigration following the fall of Saigon.

Garden Grove Councilman Robert F. Dinsen said the immigrants could cause a new round of adjustment problems in his city. “It will be a period of time until they (new immigrants) adjust, and the Caucasians learn to live with them,� he said.

Orange County Vietnamese leaders acknowledged, too, that the immigrants will need various special services to help them start new lives.

“The English (language) training, job training and mental health services--all these things will be needed,� said Duong, the director for the Vietnamese community-resource project.

While hailing the agreement, the Vietnamese refugee leaders said they remain suspicious that the Vietnamese government may be using the issue to seek diplomatic relations with the United States.

“This is a good-will gesture for Vietnam, (but) in the eyes of the nation’s Vietnamese community, we think that Vietnam wants to establish relations with the United States later,� said Le Xuan Khoa, director of the Indochina Resource Action Center in Washington.

But others, especially those with relatives in Vietnam, were pleased.

“It’s good news for everybody,� said Tien Nguyen of Costa Mesa, a former South Vietnamese air force officer whose 56-year-old brother remains in a Vietnamese re-education camp. “The key victory for us who are the activists in the community is that we wanted the U.S. never to stop thinking about those people in Vietnam who fought for freedom.

“Some of them have been put in jail for 10 years or longer,� he said.

THEY’RE HAPPY, BUT--Members of the Orange County Vietnamese community react with caution. Part II, Page 1.