A new pact was announced last week between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments which will allow U.S. officials to begin deporting undocumented immigrants from Vietnam who have committed crimes in this country, The Los Angeles Times reports. The repatriation pact, announced after over 10 years of negotiations between the two countries, affects about 1,500 Vietnamese nationals – many of them described by the U.S. government as people who were convicted of crimes in the U.S. – who arrived in the U.S. after July 12, 1995, when the two countries resumed diplomatic relations. The repatriations are scheduled to begin in two months.
In addition to the announced 1,500 people, an additional 6,200 Vietnamese nationals have received final deportation notices. However, because they arrived in the U.S. before 1995, they cannot be returned to Vietnam under the new pact. Instead, they face possible deportation to a third country, according to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The pact has caused a great deal of concern with Vietnamese immigrants, with many reacting with anger or hesitation to the idea of returning any Vietnamese nationals to a country in communist control. "The Vietnamese have already been persecuted. I am afraid that sending those people back would give them another life sentence," said Loc Nam Nguyen, director of the Immigration and Refugee Department of Catholic Charities in Los Angeles . Nguyen said that after the agreement was announced he received frantic calls from members of the Vietnamese community who worried it might affect them. "For those who go back to Mexico , they go back to their families and nothing happens to them," Nguyen said. "But for people who go back to Vietnam , it’s a totally different ballgame. They will be discriminated against. They will be denied household registration and even identification papers because they cannot provide their background in the bureaucracy process. They will have a hard time finding jobs."
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According to The Arizona Republic of Phoenix , a Scottsdale , Arizona man who ran four Western Union stores in the city was indicted last week on 80 counts of money laundering and other crimes that are suspected of financing human smugglers and drug dealers. Bruce Dennis Love, along with two other men were indicted in the four-year-old, $56.8 million money laundering scheme. Vincent Picard, spokesman for the ICE regional office in Phoenix , which participated in the 23-month long investigation, said the indictments shut down one of the "illegal support structures for human smugglers and drug traffickers." Picard said the scheme involved ‘Coyotes’ hired by Love who would bring undocumented immigrants from Mexico to Phoenix . Afterwards, family members of the smuggled immigrants would wire money to Love’s store.
The indictment claims that Love and the two unidentified suspects violated state money-laundering laws by making false statements and reports, not filing suspicious-activity reports, and accepting false personal identification receiving the wired money. If convicted, Love could face up to 100 years in prison terms if served consecutively.
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Politicians from the Mexican region bordering Arizona say they are receiving numerous reports of immigrants who are ‘self-deporting’ and landing in border communities because of Arizona’s employer sanctions law, The Associated Press reports. The law, which calls for punishing Arizona employers who knowingly employ undocumented immigrants has yet to go in effect, but it already has Mexican lawmakers concerned about the border. "We have yet to feel the full impact, but the moment (immigrants) leave Arizona , we’re going to have problems," said Enrique Flores Lopez, director of the state migrant advocacy department in the Mexican state of Sonora .
Lopez, along with other politicians from Sonora , plan to travel to Mexico City later this month to seek help to house and feed the many workers who may flee Arizona . Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours, said Mexico must do more than point a finger at the U.S. "We need to find the opportunities in our country," Bours said. "To me, it seems too easy to blame the United States and not do anything ourselves."
Under the Arizona state law, businesses that knowingly employ undocumented immigrants could face a 10-day business license suspension for a first offense. An additional offense may lead to a permanent revocation of the license. Though the law took effect Jan. 1 of this year, the county prosecutors of Arizona have agreed to wait until March 1 until enforcement, with the intention of giving the federal judges adequate time to rule on court challenges to the law.
