County Braces for New Refugees : Immigrants: Officials will discuss how to care for the expected resettlement here of a number of freed Vietnamese political prisoners.

Facing a new wave of Vietnamese immigrants by the end of the year, county officials said Friday they are concerned that needs may outstrip available government services.

The prospect of the immigration of thousands of former Vietnamese political prisoners comes at a time of threatened reductions in federal aid to help such refugees, officials said.

A July agreement between Hanoi and the United States paved the way for the release of the Vietnamese, many of whom are feared to suffer from physical and emotional problems stemming from their detention.

The agreement provides for the release of “re-education center detainees”--perhaps as many as 150,000--who were closely associated with the United States or its allies during the Vietnam War.

The first group of 3,000 former political prisoners and their families are expected to leave Vietnam by the end of the year. No definite date as been set and no exact number of refugees expected to resettle in Orange County is available.

But with the county’s population of an estimated 100,000 Vietnamese, the nation’s largest concentration, county agency directors have estimated that at least 15,000, or 10% of the total, could resettle here.

“The question is, we don’t know how many are coming to Orange County and we don’t know when they’re coming,” said Angelo Doti, director of financial assistance for the county’s Social Services Agency.

As service providers, Doti and other welfare and social services administrators in Orange County said they are concerned about health screening, immigration status and federal aid to pay for services for the refugees.

Funding is a problem, said Dianne Edwards of the adult and employment services division of the county Social Services Agency. She said a joint congressional committee recently agreed to reduce cash and medical assistance benefits to recipients by $51 million.

Three years ago, refugees were entitled to benefits for up to two years. But now, Edwards said, the county is anticipating that benefits will be reduced to only 12 months.

“It’s the same old situation of the feds dumping another program on us and then not funding it,” Doti said.

The political prisoners to be released, in contrast to the first wave of Southeast Asian refugees in 1975 who were generally young and educated, have been characterized as mostly middle-aged males with some military training and “little or no skills” which would allow them to survive in the United States.

“We anticipate that they’re probably going to need English-as-a-second-language courses, in addition to language assistance and job placement, and welfare assistance,” Edwards said.

“They are not like the first wave of doctors and other highly skilled professionals,” Doti said. “The prisoners are basically ex-military people who aren’t a lot more than farmers and fishermen. What are you going to do with someone who worked the rice paddies or killed other people for a living?”

But emotional needs may outweigh the need for job skills, Edwards said.

“Many will have health and emotional problems associated with having been in a re-education camp for long periods of time,” she said.

Former South Vietnamese soldiers like Ich Tien Nguyen of Westminster said they know of political prisoners who have spent 12 years in Vietnam’s re-education camps, some of whom were tortured or assigned to hard labor.

Many have high expectations of what the United States, or for that matter, what the U.S. Vietnamese community can provide, said Nguyen, who is a member of the Assn. of Former Political Prisoners of Communist Vietnam in Southern California.

“They think they can come here and retire gloriously. They may be disappointed. We’re going to have to explain to them that what they get here is freedom, which is the most precious thing, but they don’t get back pay, added benefits, money, or anything like that,” he said.

Hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans and associations such as Nguyen’s have begun establishing plans to welcome the new refugees, he said.

The subject of the immigration of political prisoners and their impact on the county is the topic of a symposium today at the Anaheim Marriott hotel.

Robert Funseth, the State Department’s chief negotiator for last July’s accord between Hanoi and the United States, will be present. A joint committee on refugee resettlement chaired by state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) is sponsoring the symposium, which begins at 9:30 a.m.