Less of a Life in Limbo as California Governor Jerry Brown Pardons Vietnamese Former Inmates

Governor Jerry Brown has pardoned three former refugees from Vietnam, including two from Orange

From pardon letter.  Credit: Tung's Facebook

County.  The pardons give the two of them we talked with a chance to continue with their lives outside prison as they seek to make the wider Vietnamese community aware of the struggles their fellow released inmates encounter as they seek to rejoin society, for crimes committed as kids. The news was also reported in Vietnam.

The pardons come as U.S. has agreed to honor an earlier commitment to not send deportable Vietnamese nationals who came here as refugees back to Vietnam, a country most of whom have little knowledge of.

Tung Thanh Nguyen at VFF
Photo credit: Daniel C. Tsang

We talked with Tung Thanh Nguyen, the founder of APIROC (Asians & Pacific Islanders Re Entry of Orange County) and Hai Trong Nguyen, who became the first Vietnamese beneficiary of a new law allowing early release for inmates whose crimes were committed as minors. Tung came at age 15 while Hai arrived at age 2.

Tung is a current Soros fellow who uses the grant to engage in community work building a model deportation support system.  His activism has been profiled in a short, 10-minute documentary by Lan Hoang Nguyen, "Limbo" (Bị Kẹt).  The film, which premiered at the recent Vietnamese Film Festival in Orange, traces Tung's activism after he obtained (from Gov. Brown as well) early release after being a model prisoner, including helping some visitors to safety after a prison protest.  Literature on a table outside the screening sought the public's help in petitioning Gov. Brown to grant Tung a pardon.  He granted that wish to both Tung and Hai (and a third Vietnamese former inmate Truong Quang Ly) in time for Thanksgiving this month.  Each had been imprisoned for over a decade.

Documentary Short poster featuring Tung

Tung told us that the pardon is "no guarantee" he won't still be deported.  But the pardons do offer him and Hai a next step in a legal process they will follow as they provide paperwork to immigration authorities to rescind their deportation orders, hopefully.    Both Tung and Hai regret their criminal behavior (in a murder and a robbery case respectively) but are unable to apologize in person to the victims' families by state law that bars any contact.

However Tung says he hopes they will hear about how they are now committing their lives to helping the Vietnamese community, which is no doubt skeptical about helping released inmates. They both hope their example as bad kids turned into mature adults will convince the community to do more to reintegrate former inmates back into the family and into society.  Some 13,000 Southeast Asians in America are also at risk of deportation unless the U.S. adheres to the non-deportation agreement with Vietnam for those who arrived in the U.S. before 1995.

Panel discussion after Limbo and another documentary.
Photo credit: Daniel C. Tsang

In 2016 we interviewed another Soros fellow, Eddy Zheng, who also has committed his life to the community, in this case the Chinese American community in the Bay Area, after a similar pardon.  We are glad to learn that last year he was set to take the oath to become a U.S. citizen.  He had been incarcerated for over two decades.  -- Daniel C. Tsang