Resettlement of the Vietnamese Boat People in the Philippines

Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
Department of State

Attn: Kelly Ryan, Deputy Assistant Secretary

Dear Secretary Dewey,

We, the undersigned Vietnamese Americans, would like to express our support for your offices recent initiative to consider Vietnamese boat people in the Philippines for resettlement.

These 2,000 Vietnamese are remnant of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), which ended in 1996. The United States played a leading role in the formation of the CPA in 1989 and also in closing the CPA with honorthrough the establishment of the Resettlement Opportunity for Vietnamese Returnees. So far some 18,000 repatriated boat people have arrived in the United States under this program.

At the height of the 2000 election year, Congressman Christopher Smith authored an open letter addressing many human rights and refugee issues of vital interest to Vietnamese-American voters. Titled The Clinton Administration's Egregious Record on Vietnamese Refugees -- and a Republican Response, this open letter offers a blue print to extend the registration deadline for the Humanitarian Operation (HO) program, resume the processing of former U.S. employees under the U11 program, review Amerasian cases unfairly excluded from admission to the United States, re-establish the Priority One program, and resolve the uncertain situation of Vietnamese boat people in the Philippines. This open letter was widely distributed in and warmly welcomed by the Vietnamese-American communities across the country.

We are pleased that the Bush Administration has so far implemented most of the refugee-related initiatives proposed in that open letter. We find very encouraging your recent trip to Vietnam to pursue the extension of the HO programs registration deadline. We thank you for your personal commitment to protecting re-education survivors who suffered persecution because of their previous ties with the United States.

We are also very pleased with the State Departments inclusion of Vietnamese boat people in its latest refugee report to Congress. We urge you to make your best effort to expeditiously start the processing of former boat people in the Philippines. Their fate tragically remains uncertain seven years after the CPA officially ended.

We are anxious to see that the Vietnamese boat people saga, protracted and mostly painful, be brought to a truly honorable and fair conclusion.