PressTV-‘US to deport thousands of Vietnamese immigrants’

The United States is seeking to send thousands of immigrants from Vietnam back to the communist-ruled country despite a bilateral agreement that should protect most from deportation, according to Washington’s former ambassador to Hanoi.

A “small number” of people protected by the agreement have already been sent back, the former ambassador, Ted Osius, told Reuters in an interview.

Osius said that many of the targeted immigrants were supporters of the now defunct US-backed state of South Vietnam, and Hanoi would see them as destabilizing elements.

“These people don’t really have a country to come back to,” he said. Many of those targeted would have come to the United States as refugees after the end of the Vietnam War.

Osius said the push by the Trump administration started in April last year and contributed to his resignation in October.

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman, Brendan Raedy, said that as of December last…

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