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Vietnamese Students Fight Deportation

By VVAW

(Los Angeles, CA) -- Seven South Vietnamese students brought to the US five years ago on US Agency for International Development (AID) sponsored scholarships are now fighting deportation proceedings ordered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The deportation proceedings against the students were begun after they had been denied political asylum in the US by the INS, on advice from Sec. Of State Kissinger and the Dept. of State. During initial hearings on August 15th, the students won a postponement of the case until next month.

While in the US, all seven of the students -- two women and five men -- have been active in voicing their opposition to the war and the antidemocratic Thieu regime. In June, 1972, when the US drastically escalated its bombing of Vietnam, the seven students, together with 14 other South Vietnamese students, went to Saigon Consulate General in San Fransisco to present a letter protesting the waves of repression then occurring in Saigon. They have also participated in various anti-war educational activities.

In a recent press statement, the seven students point out that "although the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam has been signed for 18 months, the belligerent and repressive policies of General Thieu continue unabated. Thousands of intellectuals, students, religious leaders and other people have since been arrested and put in jail for advocating peace, national reconciliation, and faithful implementation of the Paris Peace Agreement."

Should the government succeed in deporting the students, it is clear that they will similarly be imprisoned or possibly killed on returning to South Vietnam.

Help in their fight for asylum is desperately needed. They have asked that letters demanding asylum and condemning the Thieu regime's violations of the Paris Agreement be sent to: Congress, Sec. Of State Kissinger, and Leonard Chapman, Jr., Commissioner of Immigration, Washington, D.C. Copies of all letters should go to the students' lawyer, Frank Pestana, 619 S. Bonnie Brae, Los Angeles, CA 90057.