Trump administration might side with Vietnamese government on fate of protester

Three years ago, after a massive toxic spill created a marine life disaster and devastated fishing and tourism industries in Vietnam, Ha Van Thanh was on hand to protest.

Ha reportedly led peaceful marches and helped priests and parishioners following the toxic spill from a Taiwan-owned steel plant, Formosa Corporation.

Vietnam’s official response to his activism: beatings and interrogations.

Last year, Ha fled Vietnam and traveled through five other countries before arriving in the United States, seeking asylum. Now, he’s in an immigration detention facility in New Mexico, facing imminent deportation.

Vietnamese Americans from throughout Southern California, and many of the legislators who represent them, are seeking his release.

“It’s important because he’s a political and religious activist. He escaped to America. He deserves to have political asylum on religious and humanitarian grounds,” said Pomona resident Huu Dinh Vo, president of the United Council of Vietnamese Homeland and Overseas, a coalition of Vietnamese organizations in the United States and other countries.

In June, four members of congress wrote letters to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director and the chief immigration judge to highlight Ha’s case and urge them to stop deportation proceedings.

“There is sufficient evidence to infer that he would be at great risk of persecution should he return to Vietnam,” wrote Reps. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, Harley Rouda, D-Laguna Beach, and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose. (Lowenthal and Lofgren are co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Vietnam.)

Prior to the Trump administration, Ha’s request for asylum, based on the circumstances of his case, would have been viewed differently, according to Correa.

“For the past few years, this administration has worked to dismantle many long standing immigration policies and redefine what an asylum is. Mr. Ha Van Thanh is one of the many asylum seekers who under any other president would have been granted status,” Correa said in an e-mail Thursday, Aug. 22.

“The United States has championed democracy and freedom around the world. Extending a helping hand to refugees escaping political violence is part of our nation’s identity,” Correa added.

“It is disappointing to see this president cast aside this value.”

When Ha helped parishioners and priests of the Song Ngoc Parish, near the plant, he did so “against the government’s efforts to squash any dissent from the incident,” the legislators wrote in their letters. Fellow activists who protested in 2016 along with victims of the Formosa environmental disaster have received years-long prison sentences. Ha left Vietnam because he feared a similar fate.

He traveled to Laos, then Thailand, then Cuba, and from there to Panama, where he asked for asylum, he said in an interview with Radio Free Asia.

“As I was waiting (in Panama) for asylum, I met some Cuban migrants (on their way) to Mexico so I asked to accompany them,” he said.

Once in Mexico, Ha walked to the U.S. border and requested asylum.

But the process hasn’t gone in his favor.

“The third time I was in court, the court told me that I am not eligible for asylum because they don’t believe me, and they don’t believe what I did in Vietnam,” Ha said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to questions about his case. Meanwhile, he is being held in a detention center in Chaparral, New Mexico.