Hmong American - Hmong Immigration To U.S. - 1990s and 2000s

1990s and 2000s

Following the 1980 immigration wave, a heated global political debate developed over how the remaining Hmong refugees in Thailand should be handled. Many had been held in squalid Thailand-based refugee camps and the United Nations and the Clinton administration sought to repatriate them to Laos.

Reports of human rights violations against the Hmong, including killings and imprisonments, led most Thailand-based Hmong to oppose returning to Laos, even as the conditions of the Thailand-based camps, lacking sufficient funding, worsened.

In one of the more prominent examples of apparent Laotian abuse of the Hmong, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok - seeking to reassure the Thai-based Hmong that their safety in Laos would be assured - recruited a former Hmong soldier, Vue Mai, to return to Laos under the repatriation program. However, Vue disappeared in Vientiane, and the U.S. Commission for Refugees later reported that he was arrested by Lao security forces and never again seen.

Especially following the Vue Mai incident, the Clinton and U.N. policy of returning the Hmong to Laos began to meet with strong political opposition by U.S. conservatives and some human rights advocates. Michael Johns, a former White House aide to President George H. W. Bush and a Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst, along with other influential conservatives, led a campaign to grant the Thai-based Hmong immediate U.S. immigration rights. In an October 1995 National Review article, citing the Hmong's contributions to U.S. war efforts during the Vietnam War, Johns labeled Clinton's support for returning the Thai-based Hmong refugees to Laos a "betrayal" and urged Congressional Republicans to step up opposition to the repatriation. Opposition to the repatriation grew in Congress and among Hmong families in the U.S., and Congressional Republicans responded by introducing and passing legislation to appropriate sufficient funds to resettle all remaining Hmong in Thailand in the United States. Clinton, however, vowed to veto the legislation.

In addition to opposition to the repatriation by U.S. conservatives, the government of Laos also ultimately expressed reservations about the repatriation, stating that the Hmong remaining in Thailand were heavily involved in heroin and opium traficking. In a significant and unforeseen political victory for the Hmong and their U.S Republican advocates, tens of thousands of Thai-based Hmong refugees were ultimately granted U.S. immigration rights, with the majority being resettled in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The defeat of the repatriation initiative also led to highly emotional reunifications of long separated Hmong families in the U.S. In 2006, the Wisconsin State Elections Board translated state voting documents into the Hmong language.

Throughout the Vietnam War, and for two decades following it, the U.S. government stated that there was no "Secret War" in Laos and that the U.S. was not engaged in air or ground combat operations in Laos. In the late 1990s, however, several U.S. conservatives, led by Johns and others, alleged that the Clinton administration was using the denial of this covert war to justify a repatriation of Thailand-based Hmong war veterans to Laos and persuaded the U.S. government to acknowledge the existence of the Secret War and to honor the Hmong and U.S. veterans from the war. On May 15, 1997, in a total reversal of U.S. policy, the U.S. government acknowledged that it had supported a prolonged air and ground campaign against the North Vietnamese Army and VietCong. It simultaneously dedicated the Laos Memorial on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery in honor of the Hmong and other combat veterans from the Secret War. In 1999 there were about 250,000 Hmong people living in the United States, living in multiple areas.

While some Hmong remain in Thailand, since the September 11, 2001 attacks and the tightening of U.S. immigration laws, especially under the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, the immigration of Hmong refugees to the U.S. has significantly slowed, in part because most Hmong refugees in Thailand had been engaged in documented armed conflict (even though under U.S. sponsorship) during and after the Vietnam War.