Ex-Saigon Regime Backers May Go to U.S. Soon, Hanoi Says
Vietnam could begin allowing former inmates of “re-education camps,” detained for supporting the U.S.-backed Saigon government, to emigrate to the United States in the next several months, Radio Hanoi said Saturday.
The radio said that after two days of talks in Hanoi between teams led by Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co and Robert L. Funseth, director of the State Department’s refugee bureau, Vietnam “reaffirmed” that “released re-education center detainees and their close family members who wish to live in the United States . . . would be permitted to emigrate overseas.”
It said processing of cases could begin in several months.
A joint statement said Funseth reaffirmed President Reagan’s 1984 commitment to welcome former detainees and their families who had close ties with the United States or the South Vietnamese government that fell in 1975.
Refugee officials in Vietnam said the agreement probably would cover 11,000 former camp inmates and about 40,000 of their relatives.
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