KTLA News: "Seven South Vietnamese students fear political reprisal as they face deportation" (1974)

these demonstrators are protesting the possible deportation of seven South Vietnam exchange students seeking political Asylum here in the United States the students have been here on a 5-year educational program sponsored by the US Agency of International Development and they should have returned to South Vietnam earlier this year but they've overstayed their temporary Visa time fearing that for voice opposition to their country's government they may face political reprisal if returned to their Homeland in South Vietnam the people who do the kinds of things that we do here like to raise the voice against the political repression of the Tio government in South Vietnam and to raise the voice against the war against the US intervention in Vietnam people like this will be put in jail and tortured even liquidated every day and right now there are more than 200,000 political prisoners in South Vietnam are facing death torture so if we are to be deported home we will surely be um put in this situation and our lives will be in danger our family uh have been harassed by the uh saon government and uh they have been asked by the uh uh saon government uh namely the the saon police to uh uh to report to the uh police headquarter many times uh during the time we are here and uh during the time that uh we we get involved in different uh uh activities uh to oppose the saon government some of uh our me family members uh they threaten that uh if we continue our activities here they would lose their job and so there are various kinds of repression uh has there been any physical violence or physical harm done to your families uh like I said said that there are many examples and they said that these uh are the warning for us here if they continue uh we continue our activities here they will have a lot of other measures in the future we we have no knowledge of uh uh knowing uh if you know about our parents uh being torture or in prison but we have uh we are sure that you know our parents are harassed by the SE police while their supporters were outside gathering for a massive noon rally the seven students were inside a small little courtroom admitting that they are deportable under current US immigration rules at that time their hearing was postponed for a period of about 10 days giving their attorneys time to make application for withholding of deportation Jan minagawa Channel 5 News at the federal building in Los Angeles [Music] M ran why do you want to stay here in America uh we came here as students under the uh spons by Aid agency for International Development uh and our main purpose here uh is to study but dur during the time of uh the course of our study we have uh uh raised our voice against uh the war and uh oppose the uh repressive uh te regime that's why we got our scholarship uh terminated and uh we are facing the uh potation uh um right now if we go back home uh um we are convinced that we would uh uh face with the political persecution by the T regime what Miss Milo what has happened what type of reprisals do do you think will happen to you what what do you think will happen as far as political reprisal um political Asylum here in the US um temporarily until the time when the Paris agreement is implemented you know the Paris agreement to which the US government is one signatory it must be implemented by that I mean that when the Democratic Liberties are ensured and when it is safe for us to go home then we'll be happy and anxious to go home mran what has has any reprisals been given to your families that you've left back in South Vietnam um some of us uh some of our families uh you know our brothers uh they they forc our brothers to join the armed forces even though they uh meet all the requirement for draft Department you know they have the educational draft deferment but uh our brothers uh some of them were drafted anyway and there are many other kinds of repression like uh the our parents will call for interrogation at the police station and uh many other cases in which uh the students abroad like in uh West Germany or Japan or in France who had opposed the uh policies of the two regime uh they were asked to uh return home to join the Army and um but those students uh refused to go back home so like uh they uh uh sentence those students uh to uh like six years in prisons and and uh like and uh uh those students are Deni of the rights of citizen citiz Citizenship within 20 years it happened in 1968 I'm [Music] S9 yeah that [Music] righte [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] maybe gas [Music] yeah not [Music] me going back to the childhood which [Music] [Music] Stu while the supporters were outside gathering for a noon rally the seven students were inside a small courtroom admitting that they are deportable under US immigration rules the deportation hearings are being postponed for 10 days while application is being filed Jan minagawa Channel 5 News at the federal building in Los Angeles while their supporters are gathering outside the federal court building for a noon rally the seven students were inside admitting that they are deportable under US immigration rules their deportation hearing has been postponed for about 10 days giving their lawyers time to apply for a withholding deportation notice Jan minagawa Channel 5 News at the federal court building in Los Angeles while their supporters are gathering for a massive noon rally the seven students were inside the courtroom admitting that they are deportable under current US immigration rules their postponement has been while their supporters were gathering outside the building for a massive noon rally the seven students were inside a small courtroom admitting that they are deportable under current US immigration rules at that time the postponement was granted for 10 days while their attorneys apply for a postponement of