From venerable institutions like Mai’s restaurant and Les Givral’s in Midtown Houston, to the bright bustling scenes of Saigon Plaza on the city’s West Side, to Radio Saigon piping across the airwaves of the Southeast Texas, the influence of Texas’ Vietnamese Community is a palpable and celebrated part of the Houston region’s diverse mosaic. With a multi-generational populace over 80,000 strong since the fall of Saigon in the 1970s, most Houstonians today couldn’t imagine their city without them.
Which is why many Houstonians are disturbed to hear of the Trump Administration’s constant efforts to weaken and threaten immigrant communities. Here’s the story from Charles Dunst and Krishnadev Calamur of The Atlantic…
The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades—many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War.
[…]
The White House unilaterally reinterpreted the agreement in the spring of 2017 to exempt people convicted of crimes from its protections, allowing the administration to send back a small number of pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants, a policy it retreated from this past August. Last week, however, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi said the American government was again reversing course.
Washington now believes that the 2008 agreement fails to protect pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants from deportation, the spokesperson, who asked not to be identified by name because of embassy procedures, told The Atlantic.
“The United States and Vietnam signed a bilateral agreement on removals in 2008 that establishes procedures for deporting Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States after July 12, 1995, and are subject to final orders of removal,” the spokesperson said. “While the procedures associated with this specific agreement do not apply to Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, it does not explicitly preclude the removal of pre-1995 cases.”
In true Trump fashion, the Executive Branch is once again exhibiting behavior which blatantly Un-American. Thankfully come January, there will be at least one real-time check on these misdeeds, via the Democrat-controlled House Of Representatives.
But the fact that such vile can fly under the radar of municipal, county and state leaders is equally inexcusable. Texas Leftist is calling on Members of Houston City Council, former and currently serving state legislators, and our state–wide elected officials to call out the Trump Administration for these hate–filled tactics.
It’s time for our political leaders to stand up and protect the great Texans in this community. If you can’t do that, you don’t deserve to hold office.
