Katrina Aftermath

Hi all,

Wonder if anybody knows of the current situation of Vietnamese people trapped

in the church in New Orleans, and if anybody has any contact with people

living in the region. I'm trying to get hold of some people to write a news

report. Please help if possible. Thank you in advance.

Regards,

CamLy N. Bui

I have heard from Sara Colm, the Human Rights Watch researcher for Viet

Nam, that she was not in New Orleans for the storm and her family is safe.

I have not heard from Randy Fertel, organizer of the Ron Ridenhour

memorial, who is a New Orleans native and resident. Has anyone else?

Dan

Hi Cam Ly

Vu Thanh Thuy is a former journalist in Saigon and now runs a Vietnamese broadcast in Houston. She's been involved in helping to mobilize help for the people in New Orleans and are in touch with people there. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3332407

Her website is: http://www.radiosaigonhouston.com/

Here's an interview I did with her. http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD37

Trang Nguyen was interviewed on NPR. She was the one who posted messages about the people trapped in a church in Versailles.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4831761

Hung Nguyen is a resourceful leader at the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans. He's been inviolved with relief effort. He can be reached at admin@ncvaonline.org

For more information, please visit:

http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/resources_katrina.shtm#donate <http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/resources_katrina.shtm#donate> or (http://www.ncvaonline.org <http://www.ncvaonline.org> )

Best

Nguyen Qui Duc, Pacific Time, KQED

Dear Dan and group,

In response to Katrina's devastation, there's a lovely piece of writing

by Do Kh, published on the Talawas site.

Of all the articles I have read on the subject, in English and in

Vietnamese, this is the one I enjoyed the most. Check it out.

Site: http://www.talawas.org

author: Do Kh

date: 7/september/05

title: Ba Ca?nh mu`a mu+a o+? My~

Cheers,

Du

Wonderful. Got to get this out in English somehow.

Love his epigraphs. Must point out that Do Kh attributes two of them to

the singers who made the songs famous, not to their authors.

Chuck Berry was the first to hold rights to the lyrics of "Johnny B.

Goode". But "House of the Rising Sun" is "traditional", not by the

Animals. My favorite recording is from the 40s, and some say the song

is ante-bellum. "City of New Orleans" is by the late Steve Goodman, not

by his good friend Arlo Guthrie.

Dan

>From An Vo of NAVASA <an.vo@navasa.org>:

Dear NAVASA affiliates, friends, and supporters,

We have just got word from Alabama, that the Vietnamese Community in Mobile,

Alabama is in great need of Vietnamese translators to help conduct needs

assessment with the Vietnamese (see e-mail below). In the past weeks, we

have heard news of our Vietnamese community in Louisiana and Mississippi,

but today we finally have words from the community in Mobile Alabama.

NAVASA would like to ask that if you yourself or you know of anyone who

maybe able to volunteer in this task, please contact Betty J. Platt

directly. Her information can be found below. NAVASA will coordinate with

some of our affiliate members to see what help we can provide.

In the meantime, also help spread the word within your network so that more

help can come to Alabama.

Thank you everyone!

~An

-----Original Message-----

From: Platt, Betty

Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 9:55 AM

To: Oltmann, Hank

Subject: RE: Update on disaster response in Alabama

Bayou LaBatre is a small fishing community south of Mobile that was badly

damaged in the storm. They have a large Vietnamese community and in order

to help people, they need either translators or people who can conduct needs

assessment with the Vietnamese.

Let me know if you need more info.

Betty

Betty J. Platt State Program Director

Corporation for National and Community Service

950 22nd Street North, Suite 428

Birmingham, AL 35203

205-731-0030

bplatt@cns.gov

The poet Do Kh passed on to me these lyrics to "The House of the Rising

Sun" from the steets of Saigon:

Ð?ng h? Seiko m?i mua v?

Túng quá mang di c?m, v? nh`

Kh?a lão dinh, kh?a lão la, bhn b?i d?i

Do Kh dates these lines to around 1970 and translates them:

I'm too broke, had to pawn my new Seiko watch

When I came home my ol' man scolded me and beat me up

I got the runaway, the runaway, the runaway blues

This item belongs in a book. I am passing it along in hope that it fits

into someone else's research agenda.

Dan

I have read some comments regarding the Netherlands system of flood

control as it relates to the Katrina flood. Are there any views regarding

Vietnam's system of flood control as compared to the New Orleans system?

- Steve Denney

Dear Steve,

This is a large question which can't be answered easily. From my research

project in Nam Dinh and from missions for the Dutch Embassy in Hanoi to

central Vietnam, I know that flood control (and disaster relief) has a high

priority in Vietnam. There is since the late 1940's a reasonable early

warning system that works pretty well in spite of the many victims each

year. From my data, however, there is no clear evidence that e.g. the

increase in number and intensity of typhoons also leads to an increase in

vulnerability or higher risks for the system. With the transformation of the

economic and environmental system, new measures are taken. The dense

population and intensive agriculture have, however, made natural hazards an

intrinsic risk for social vulnerability, which we have not only defined in

individual and social terms, but which needs also historically

contextualized. Vulnerability is a concept that has some "western" overtones

like tropicality had in the past: it is not always a matter of technical

solutions, but also of awareness and willingness. I follow the Katrina

events at close distance. and there are so many questions to ask. One

question is e.g. How a major hazard could become such a disaster is a matter

of how a state is capable to take the appropriate measures. Another one, is

how people of different social strata react when they are living

continuously with risk. The Dutch learned from the February 1953 disaster

and they build the so-called Delta works. Nowadays, we are know that such

technological measures are only one side of the coin. In Vietnam, I noticed

a high degree of preparedness vis a vis floods, typhoons and the like, but

the litmus test is always the event as it happens. A blessing in disguise is

e.g. the loudspeaker system that originates from the collectivisation period

and is used as a device for an early warning system. There are more measures

taken, as I noticed during my stay along the coast. But one needs another

forum to explain these measures. I hope this is the beginning of an answer.

Best regards,

John Kleinen

Three things come to my mind after reading the posted text below.

First, I was in rural north Vietnam in 1988-89, after the poor harvest

of 1988 was widely reported as threatening famine. In villages I

visited, there were two reasons why there were no reports of severe

actual hunger. First, due to the opening up of inter-provincial trade

there was southern rice in the markets. Second, that the government had

used its existing emergency management structures to instruct local

officials that their heads would roll if anybody starved, and so

effective measures had been taken and systems in place actually used.

Second, whilst Vietnamese government can be as exotically incompetent as

the American, there are at least two areas where it is not incompetent.

First, in the government of hygiene related to pig butchering, which

works. Second, in what government should do when there is a risk of dyke

damage due to storms. Much to my surprise, and I have seen it happening,

under those conditions people in authority emerge, follow systems, tell

others what to do, authority and organisation is brought into play, and

there is government.

Third, 'Volkish' US attempts to cope with the failure of their

government to govern, showing good in the bad, 'as the good people come

together' are increasingly familiar to us foreigners who watch the

media, who have seen BBC journalists interviewing, with not an official

in sight, poor black Americans left to cope in a state-less state in New

Orleans after the hurricane. Hapless visions of a self-governing civil

society may also have been present at the post-war planning free

Pentagon prior to the invasion of Iraq. A country that decided that a

veteran should mean somebody who served in the military rather than

somebody who had actually risked their life fighting now decides that

refugee is a word that applies to foreigners only.

I would hazard that it was mixture of the political culture of the VCP

(not an uncorrupt organisation) and fear of the popular consequences

that leads to the behaviour I mention above. Was Winston Churchill cruel

but right in saying that people get the governments they deserve? Will

this continue?

Adam Fforde

Dear all:

I've just spent the last days in Houston and Baton Rouge -- a quick trip.

The situation in Hong Kong Mall is less chaotic. Most people have moved into churches and homes offered by local residents. Hundreds still do gather at Hong Kong mall to fill out forms, get help. It's odd to see an area right in the middle of the mall filled with people seeking and receiving help while around them people get on with shopping and frequenting the restaurants.

Radio Saigon Houston is still broadcasting all sorts of messages from people looking for relatives. Hundreds are still looking for relatives and friends. Some are immediately family.

A few non-religious groups have been much more active and helping with communications with FEMA and Red Cross, and some Vietnamese are able to access some financial help from Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Communications with Red Cross and FEMA remain a difficult situation: internet lines down, phone unanswered, lack of translators, etc.

In Baton Rouge, on Saturday, I saw a dozen Red Cross workers interviewing Vietnamese evacuees at the church. Some are living there, some come to meet Red Cross people. It was a chaotic scene, hundreds and hundreds of people in and out, not knowing how to answer questions or fill out forms,. Others were there also to attend mass, and met the Vatican representative who came with a delegation to visit.

All in all, although these people have suffered terible losses, they sound upbeat. They say they have survived a lot and are simply anxious to get back to New Orleans, or places like Versailles, and assess the damages. They want to rebuild their lives there and not be resettled elsewhere.

Individual stories are quite horrendous. A lot are working class -- waiters, waitresses, mechanics, nail workers, and people working in fishing industry. They don't want to move away.

The churches are doing a tremendous job in offering comfort and material help.

Social workers and non-religious groups tend to think the church is trying to hang on to church members and recruit members. The NGOs are concerned with private information that the church is able to obtain from evacuees.

The professionals are also thinking that evacuees are upbeat because in fact they are still in trauma and can't think strategically about their future.

The issues of racial conflict with African American community seems to have died down. There had been rumors and confirmed stories of conflict, including violence, but most Vietnamese evacuees are no longer in contact with African American community. There are only a few Vietnamese individuals at Red Cross/FEMA shelter areas (Convention Center, Superdome, Centralplex in Baton Rouge, etc).

For now it is about understanding and overcoming FEMA and Red Cross requirements -- including citizenship questions. Otherwise the Vietnamese are relying on help from the community. One Houston single mom (5 kids) in her mid-thirties, a black Amerasian, has taken 31 people into her home. She is a nailworker but volunteers at Hong Kong Mall. Other people offer food.

Coordination and coopperation between government, Red Cross, religious groups, community groups, and outside community NGos, seems to be an issue. Meanwhile a coalition of such people took off from Houston in a convoy to bring food and other supplies to Baton Rouge, then on to New Orleans and Biloxi where stranded Vietnamese need more help.

Best,

Nguyen Q Duc

Pacific Time/KQED

You have been sent this message from proschanf@folklife.si.edu as a

courtesy of washingtonpost.com

A Center of Solace for Families

By Evelyn Nieves

BILOXI, Miss., Sept. 8 -- It took 30 years for Vietnamese refugees to

turn a homely corner of Biloxi into a thriving neighborhood -- and 13

hours of Katrina to send them back to the day they came here.

Much of the neighborhood is either leveled or broken beyond repair. The

My Viet Supermarket is gone. The Chi-Kim-Lien fashion boutique -- gone.

Gone too is the marquee restaurant, Xuan Huong, which took up half a

block of Division Street and brought tourists into the neighborhood from

all over the Gulf Coast.

Xuan Muise, owner of the Xuan Huong restaurant, was also the

neighborhood's mayor and mother hen. Muise, a spry woman of 78, belonged

to the first wave of Vietnamese immigrants to settle here, in 1975,

after she escaped from Vietnam in 1969 and landed in Southern

California. She had visited Biloxi, thought the weather reminded her of

her home country ("not too hot, not too cold") and helped the

neighborhood grow up, taking people in and showing them the way to jobs

and mortgages.

Her greatest pride was the Chau Van Duc Buddhist Temple. She spent 18

years helping to raise money for it and four years watching the temple

go up. The temple, for many here, was the most significant symbol of

the Vietnamese in east Biloxi, the sign that they belonged.

Chau Van Duc opened, unfinished, nearly a year ago. But the grand

opening, with 53 visitors from around the country, 30 of them monks, was

Aug. 28. More than 1,000 families arrived to join the celebration. A day

later, the 53 out-of-town visitors survived Katrina's blows by punching

a hole in the ceiling of the temple's storage closet and crouching in

the crawl space under the roof.

Katrina beat up the temple, causing thousands of dollars in damage to a

property that still owes the bank $100,000. But the temple is not

destroyed. So Muise and other temple members invited people with nowhere

else to go to stay there. While the sanctuary is mired in muck, about 15

families have been sleeping outside on the cool, stone patio. Others

come by all day long, looking for food, water and hurricane news.

The people staying on the patio say they feel privileged to be here;

they will stay put, even though there are beds at the shelter in the

junior high school several blocks away.

Muise's daughter, Kim Weatherly, surmised that none of the families

want to be shuffled around like refugees for the second time in their

lives.

"We've already been through that," she said. "I believe people don't

want that to happen again."

Nhan Tran, who is 30 and has lived here all his life, said he and his

parents have no plans to leave the temple patio, no plans really at all.

"We don't have any family in other states," said Tran, who worked at the

Imperial Palace casino, one of the 10 Biloxi casinos now closed

indefinitely. Despite being raised in Biloxi, he speaks with a

Vietnamese accent, no doubt from having lived in a neighborhood where

Vietnamese comes first. It is hard, Tran said, to think of living

anywhere else.

"We have food and water and company," he said, adding that the families

spend their time chatting, trading stories and rumors about the plight

of the Gulf Coast. They have not heard a radio or seen a television

since the storm hit.

They are not the only members of this community cut off from the world.

Families with houses barely standing are staying in or by them, with no

radio or access to news. Thao and Thuyet Ngo and their three daughters,

who live across the street from Muise's restaurant, are staying in front

of an empty building next door to their damaged house.

"This is like being in Vietnam now," said Nga Pham, who is 15. Her

father, Thao Ngo, fled Vietnam in 1976 and moved the family to Biloxi

nine years ago. He said the family had no friends or relatives elsewhere

in the United States. Nor did he know what was going on anywhere else on

the Gulf Coast, he said. All he knew was that his family and friends

were safe.

But others could not be sure what happened to those they know. Dunh

Truong, a shrimper who came here from Vietnam in 1990, had weathered the

hurricane in the ship he captains, the Blue Angel. It was docked with

the rest of the Biloxi shrimp fleet in Back Bay, which Katrina did not

spare. Truong saw sailboats fly through the sky and shrimp boats slam

from one side of the bay to the other as he rode the hurricane "like a

cowboy on a bull."

But he did not know what happened to his neighbors. Right after the

hurricane, he climbed an embankment, got in his car and drove to Biloxi,

to the temple.

No one knew the fate of the shrimp fleet, about 70 boats with 200 to

250 people on board. On Wednesday, Truong had his chance to find out.

Coast Guard Port Security Unit 309, out of Ohio, was heading to the

Back Bay to check on the fleet. It turned out that the only way for the

shrimp fleet to leave the bay was closed, because the drawbridge that

would allow the ships to pass through was blocked by hurricane debris.

The shrimp fleet had been stuck in the bay for over a week, and the

Coast Guard unit was taking them food and water. It needed a Vietnamese

interpreter to ask what the crews needed, how many people were out

there, who had died.

Truong left off helping clean up the temple and joined Cmdr. Andrew

Scott McKinley and his crew as they went to visit the stranded shrimp

fleet. He silently eyed the destroyed ships and boats on the way. The

Coast Guard boat stopped at a ship with an elderly crew of four, another

with a shrimper and his pregnant wife.

"Ask them if they know of people who died," McKinley urged Truong. The

choking smell of death permeated the air. But no one could say how many

people had perished. The pregnant woman said she watched one ship

capsize with eight people on board, another with three. The elderly

crew, on board the Captain Sen, had lost one of their three dogs when

the hurricane tipped their boat on its side. Other people that Truong

hailed had seen boats go down but did not know how many people were on

them.

Rumors have been flying up and down in the Vietnamese neighborhood in

Biloxi. But Truong had seen enough to tell his friends and neighbors

what they might expect. He returned to Biloxi from Gulfport with a box

of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs). He would go back to the temple, prepared

to tell his friends and neighbors some news.

A quick canvass of the a few Vietnamese online newspapers today yields the following information: 1) Versailles area outside New orleans (California Today): There are about 10,000 Vietnamese living in the area but most have evacuated before the hurricane hit. According to Father Nguyen The Vien, the parish priests, there are still dozens left, currently holed up in the church. The area is inundated with water, up to 12 feet, and people have to move to the 2nd floor of the church. Most are old people without children who could not get out by themselves. Fortunately, according the reporter, they have made contact with the local authority and the police have promised to find ways to move them out. (http://www.calitoday.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=5f2edf309e3dd88a 6b964e345a6be549) 2) Houston (http://www.vietbao.com/ and www.nguoi-viet.com/) Buses have been organized to transport Vietnamese stranded in the 3 states to Houston, about 700 people altogether by the second day. Many drove themselves to the Hongkong 4 commecial mall and then slept in the car. Saigon Houston Radio issued an appeal to local Vietnamese to open their homes. A few hours after the appeal, 500 people from Lousiana found a helping hand. Many invited people to come stay in their house after seeing them driving on the street. By Wed Aug 31, over 1500 have arrived. Thanks to the intervention of Representative Hubert Vo (Texas), the National Guard helped transport 400 stranded Vietnamese from a parish in Lousiana to safety. The Hoa Hao Buddhist Church has issued an appeal for contributions. The needs, short term and long term, are enormous. Thanks, Dan, for starting the thread.

-Chung Nguyen

Hi, I just talked to Randy -- he and his children are in New York and they are fine. His house wasn't in an area that's flooded. He appreciates all the messages. That's also great news about Sara Colm.

Best Duc

Reach Out to the Vietnamese Community inBiloxi

Dear Friends and Family,

It is estimated that there are over 4,000

Vietnamese

still in the Biloxi area. Many are dependant on

the

goodwill of the local Vietnamese Temple and

Church.

Most have congregated into small boats with 3

separate families per boat because their homes and

boats have been destroyed or are uninhabitable.

Many cars are submerged and these families do not

have access to get relief supplies on their own.

Our experiences working in Houston with the

Vietnamese Katrina evacuees has been one that is

both sad and empowering. Words cannot describe

the

emotions you will face upon meeting the many

survivors. The Vietnamese people in the Gulf

Coast

have now found themselves as refugees for the

second

time. Once due to war waged in our homeland and

now

due to a monstrous storm.

It is one of the first times in our lives that we

felt proud of the support that we have seen from

the

Vietnamese community in Houston. They have

offered

much needed aid when large agencies have ignored

the

Katrina survivors. Even though it is heartwarming

to see the support in Houston, more assistance and

accountability needs to be done for the community.

What is more frustrating is that the government

agencies and nonprofit organizations designed and

meant to help our people have once again abandoned

the Vietnamese community. For example, FEMA and

the

Red Cross have not sent any direct help to our

large

community that is displaced in Houston. They both

have ignored our requests for assistance in terms

of

language support, setting reasonable systems of

support for aid, and requests for sending

representatives to work directly with our

community.

Because of the bureauocracy of the aforementioned

agencies, our community has been put on the

backburner.

We have word from one of our Vietnamese volunteer

colleagues, that has taken it upon himself to

directly help the Vietnamese community in Biloxi,

Mississippi, that the people in Biloxi have only

recently received a limited amount of relief

supplies such as food and water. The need for

support is even greater in Biloxi than in Houston

because of the lack of a large Vietnamese

community

outside of those that were survivors of Katrina.

We are calling on people who are fed up with this

systematic arrogance of these agencies designed to

help and protect people in their time of need.

Since our community has been ignored, we need to

organize and arm ourselves with information to

help

our community.

We are organizing and fundraising to meet a number

of needs. Our first priorities are to bring

relief

supplies to these families in Biloxi and to get

out

information about people's rights in Vietnamese

about assistance from various agencies. We then

also want to caravan food and water to the people

who cannot access their own supplies and help

interpret for the Vietnamese community. We want

to

hold these agencies accountable for their lack of

support, even though they have received millions

in

aid, to use the money to directly aid the

survivors

of Katrina, rather than pocketing the money or

using

it for administrative or bureaucratic purposes.

We will fundraise to provide better shelter for

our

Vietnamese community in Biloxi, such as with tents

and sleeping gear. In the near future, we hope to

raise enough to provide more sturdy shelters than

just tents since the rebuilding process may take a

long time. In the meantime, it is up to us to

provide support for our community especially when

they are largely being ignored.

Please donate what you can, so we can bring direct

relief to support to our much needed communities.

Sincerely,

Au Huynh, Bao Nguyen, and David Nguyen

-Former Houston Hong Kong Supercenter volunteers

not

affiliated with any organization

We are in the process of setting up a Donation

account through a responsible nonprofit organization. The Donation account should be active on Monday September 19. Please check back again after that date. All donations will go directly to

relief supplies to Biloxi. We are working purely

as independent volunteers and are not affiliated with

organizations.

For more info please check out our site at

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=biloxirelief

or email at operatiobbiloxirelief@yahoo.com

What I find interesting about this is the strong sense that governments

have a duty of care. The famous saying 'ban nhu cho, mua nhu cuop',

often attributed to Tran Phuong, came, according to him, from an old and

outraged Vietnamese farmer who gave him a thorough ticking off for the

mess the government had made of the situation. This statement below

seems to me centrally in that tradition, also familiar in its tone. This

is not of course simply a Vietnamese tradition but it is clearly not the

100% dominant American one, as revealed by the ongoing behaviour of

staff at the relevant agencies. We have similar problems here in

Australia with immigration officials. This is, rather, the attitude that

citizens are lucky to get what they get and that what is right and wrong

is what officials think it is.

Intriguing.

Adam

In collaboration with CAPAC and NCAPA, NAVASA will

host a congressional

briefing highlighting challenges faced by Vietnamese

Americans and Asian

Americans.

***********************

"Katrina and the Asian American Community"

Congressional Briefing

Hosted by

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

National Council of Asian Pacific Americans

National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service

Agencies

When: Thursday, September 29, 2005

Where: Rayburn Building, Room 2105

Time: 3:00 - 4:30 PM

For more information, contact Tong Lee (NCAPA) at

(202) 296-2300 x. 123,

Linda Hoang (NAVASA) at (301) 587-2781, or Victoria

Tung (CAPAC) at (202)

225-2631.

The briefing will feature speakers who have been in

the region helping to provide relief and provide access to policy experts

working on responses.

The discussion will highlight the current challenges

faced by Asian

Americans hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Louisiana was home to over 50,000 Asian Americans,

of which more than half

were Vietnamese. Most of them lived in the areas

affected by Hurricane

Katrina. An estimated 10,000 Vietnamese evacuees

relocated to Houston.

Southern Mississippi was also home to about 7,000

Vietnamese and other Asian

residents, many of them now displaced. The

hurricane also hurt Chinese,

Filipino, Bangladeshi and Korean Americans who also

have been affected.

Many of the Asian Americans in the Gulf coast region

hit by Katrina are

refugees and immigrants, some are undocumented.

Asian Americans helping to

provide relief and victims of the hurricane are

reporting that they have

been unable to secure information and timely help

due to language

difficulties. With Asian American community

infrastructure and resources

limited in places like Bayou La Batre, Alabama,

Baton Rouge, Louisiana and

Gulfport, Mississippi, many Asian American faith

based organizations have

stepped in to help but are overwhelmed by the need.

In cities like Houston,

extended relatives and community based organizations

are providing direct

assistance to the Asian American evacuees, but are

running out of resources

and need help.

Remarks:

Representative Al Green (TX-9)

Representative Michael Honda (CA-15) and Chair of

CAPAC

Karen K. Narasaki, President of National Asian

American Legal Consortium and

Chair of NCAPA (moderator)

Huy Bui, Executive Director, National Alliance of

Vietnamese American

Service Agencies

Presenters:

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, Executive Director, Boat

People SOS (Houston relief)

Jon Melegrito, National Communications Director,

National Federation of

Filipino American Associations (Baton Rouge relief

efforts)

Rev. Bao Nguyen, Baptist Church (faith based work

with victims in Bayou La

Batre, Alabama)

Venerable Hang Dat, Buddhist Temple (faith based

work with victims in

Biloxi, Mississippi)

Juliet Choi, Staff Attorney, National Asian Pacific

American Legal

Consortium (physical and mental health issues)

Evacuee from New Orleans region (invited)

Agencies invited to present:

James Schumann, Director of Legislative Affairs for

FEMA (invited)

Jan Lane, Vice President of Government Affairs for

Red Cross (invited)

Policy Experts:

Traci Hong, Director of Immigration Program,

National Asian Pacific American

Legal Consortium (immigration and noncitizen

eligibility issues)

Doua Thor, Executive Director, Southeast Asia

Resource Action Center

(appropriations and refugee system as potential

resource)