Arriving After 16-Year Detour

Tears, whoops of joy and a constellation of flashbulbs erupted Monday evening at Los Angeles International Airport as one of the last waves of Vietnamese boat people began arriving in the U.S. -- 30 years after the fall of Saigon.

Pushing carts laden with luggage, stuffed animals and food, the refugees fought their way through a throng of journalists to reach their connecting flights.

“Thank You America for Welcoming Us,” read a banner held aloft by some of the passengers.

“I’m very grateful” to have made it to the U.S., said Duong Qua, 59, who was on his way to Washington, echoing the sentiments of those around him.

The 229 refugees aboard ATA Airlines flight 6088 belong to a group of nearly 2,000 people stranded in the Philippines without legal status since 1989. They are regarded as the nearly forgotten leftovers of the Vietnam War.

Unwilling to return to Vietnam out of fear of persecution and unwanted by any new homeland, they have remained stateless in the South Pacific nation, unable to own a business or house, or even to hold certain jobs.

Last year, after lobbying by refugee advocates, U.S. and Philippine officials hammered out a plan to resettle the refugees.

“It was past time to find a humanitarian resolution,” said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of Homeland Security.

About 1,600 refugees are expected to be approved for resettlement in the U.S., said Patrick Corcoran, a representative of the International Organization for Migration, which helped organize the transfer.

Tears flowed as the first 229 boarded a California-bound jet in Manila.

“We are very, very happy,” Van Nguyen told reporters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. “After a long wait, we will have our own home.”

The plane took off 10 hours behind schedule and landed at LAX late Monday afternoon.

Some of the passengers brought children who were born in the Philippines and lack any memory of the country their parents fled in the years after South Vietnam fell.

Van Nguyen’s journey began in 1989 when his family left Vietnam by boat with 76 other people, spending a few weeks adrift in the South China Sea before being found by fishermen and brought to a small island in the western Philippines.

Nguyen figured he would briefly stay in a refugee camp run by the United Nations before being allowed to meet up with siblings who had relocated to Texas much earlier.

But as the waiting dragged on, he began to despair.

Several of the refugees expressed gratitude for Filipino hospitality. “I am very happy to leave the Philippines to go [to America], but the Philippines has been very good to the Vietnamese people ... for a long time,” said Han Van Le, 45.

About 50 of the passengers plan to take up residence in Southern California, which has a thriving Vietnamese community in Little Saigon.

A throng of friends, family and politicians started converging on the airport about noon, four hours before the plane touched down. Some of those waiting had been refugees in the Philippines themselves. Two hours later, airport police began cordoning off an area with yellow tape and signs that said, “Vietnamese Refugees Arrival Event.” TV camera lights illuminated the scene. People clutched homemade signs and flowers. A little girl skipped around, holding a balloon that read, “Welcome.”

Julie Tran of San Diego said she wasn’t waiting for any particular person. “I’m just a fan,” she said, “a fan of the hope that these people have lived on for 16 years.”

Passengers rushed to hug friends and relatives crowded behind metal railings. Shouts, screams and leaps for joy punctuated the waiting area.

One woman, Kim-Dang Vo, 44, and her six children ages 10 to 24 reunited with her 70-year-old mother, Thuyet Dang of Van Nuys. The two embraced amid tears, and posed for family pictures.

“I’m so happy to be here,” Vo said through an interpreter. “We were so unlucky because we were separated, but now I can bring my children here to join the big family.”

Said Dang, also through an interpreter: “I cannot ask for better, because this is great.”

The now-greatly enlarged family piled into two vans and drove away, ready to begin the process of getting to know each other again.

More than 1.5 million people left Vietnam after the war ended in 1975. Some were rescued by the U.S. military; others fled by boat.

Until 1989, they were automatically classified as political refugees and were eligible for resettlement in various countries.

But that year, with refugee camps in Asia overflowing, 74 countries began screening the boat people to determine whether they had fled Vietnam for economic or political reasons.

Those who were deemed economic refugees, or who were found to have medical or character problems, were barred from migrating to the United States.

Among the rejects were about 200 Amerasians fathered by U.S. servicemen. They had left Vietnam in the early 1990s aboard planes chartered by Washington. After a stopover in the Philippines, most eventually gained admission to the United States, but the rest had their visas revoked on the basis of “antisocial” behavior, medical problems or submitting fraudulent information on application forms.

Hanoi refused to readmit the Amerasians, though other refugees were eligible to return to their homeland.

Those who stayed in the Philippines said they feared persecution if they returned to Vietnam, despite extensive United Nations monitoring that found no mistreatment of returnees by the Communist government.

In 1996, the holdouts were ordered back to Vietnam, a move that would have allowed the United States to reconsider them for admission to America as political refugees.

But when Philippine officials tried to force them to leave their country and fly back to Vietnam, some of the refugees rioted at the airport.

Roman Catholic officials intervened and pressured the Philippine government to let the refugees stay indefinitely.

U.S. immigration officials are continuing to interview Vietnamese in the Philippines for possible resettlement in the United States.

Another 400 who married Filipino citizens aren’t eligible for relocation, Strassberger said, but the Philippine government has promised them permanent residency.

“We’re still trying to convince the Americans to take in the rest,” said Hoi Trinh, a Vietnamese Australian lawyer, said of the 400.

“We’re not giving up. We’re also talking to authorities in Canada and Australia to try to accommodate some more of these stateless people.”

He said about 500 Vietnamese refugees were resettled in Australia and Canada between 1996 and 2004.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.