IRVINE : City Unites Families Torn by War

Huong Lam longs to know her mother.

Lam fled Vietnam in 1978 by boat when she was 12, leaving her mother, Theo Tran, behind. They had no contact until the early 1980s, when Lam began receiving letters and learned that her mother was very ill.

She sent money and medicine but wanted to do more. So Lam, a 23-year-old UC Irvine student who works for the city of Irvine, sought help under a new city program.

“As a daughter, I’ve always been raised (to believe) that you have to look after your parents,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do, I’d rather do it.”

The program, believed to be one of first of its kind for a small or mid-size city in the United States, was established to help reunify families separated by war or other circumstances. A panel of volunteers was set up last year to handle human rights and family reunification issues, but it became a formal city program in December. Currently, five families are being assisted.

The effort’s most prominent success story is that of Thu Duong, a former colonel in the South Vietnamese army who remained in Vietnam after his family was airlifted.

His daughter, Huong, an Irvine physician, said the family had tried normal channels and lawyers to find him and bring him to the United States.

“It was just nice to have someone stand up for you,” she said. The family was reunited in December. It was Huong Duong’s appeal to the City Council later that month which helped solidify the program.

David Trickett, a part-time city employee who manages the effort, said it serves “constituents who have very fundamental needs: to have one’s family reunited.”

Usually, helping people deal with federal bureaucracy’s red tape has been left to local congressional offices. For example, Peter Slen, an aide to Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), said Cox’s office is working on 400 immigration cases. But in an unusual move for local municipalities, Irvine is trying to help those who live and work in the city deal with the red tape, both here and abroad.

“There’s a growing attitude or awareness by local officials that the federal government is not really addressing the problems that local areas are dealing with,” Trickett said.

Lam, for example, has no documentation to prove that Theo Tran is her real mother. Until Lam can produce a birth certificate or some other document, Washington refuses to act on her request.

Other cases Irvine officials are working on include those of:

* A Chinese student and his wife who are trying to obtain permission for their daughter to join them during his studies.

* An Irvine woman who is trying to gain the admission of her Peruvian brother-in-law and his family.

* The family of an Irvine engineer, Duc Le, who have been granted permission by the Vietnamese government to leave Vietnam but regarding whom the U.S. government has not made a final decision. “I’ve been waiting for this for 15 years,” Le said. “I’m the only member of my family in the U.S.”

Program volunteers have asked former President Richard M. Nixon to help the Chinese student. They have also written British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to complain about Britain’s forced repatriation of Vietnamese boat people.

Those aided by the reunification program say they feel less isolated.

“We’ve been dealing for the last year with some unknown immigration official in Hong Kong,” said Viet Dinh, 22, who has been trying to gain the release of his sister from a Hong Kong refugee camp. “It’s been helpful to know there’s someone on my side.”

But the effort, part of the city’s international affairs program, has met resistance. Council Member Sally Anne Sheridan is the most vocal opponent.

Sheridan said she is not against reunifying families but believes that the city should not meddle in foreign affairs. The overall program is a drain on city staff and contributes to the city’s growing bureaucracy, she said. It is, in fact, merely a political tool for Mayor Larry Agran, Sheridan said. Agran, her opponent in the June 5 mayoral election, started the program.

But Agran said Sheridan’s position is “irresponsible and heartless. It fails to recognize all that we can do to promote international human rights,” he said.