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)