Laotian and Hmong refugees are preparing to face a possible increase in deportations, in part because the U.S. government is funding a reintegration program to help Laos accept nationals with final orders of removal.


Asian American advocacy groups in a joint statement last week announced the news of the funding for the program, which the Department of State confirmed in an email.



The development is troubling for Laotians and Hmong with final orders of removal because it creates infrastructure for them to successfully reintegrate into Laotian society, Katrina Dizon Mariategue, director of national policy at the civil rights nonprofit Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, said.“And since a program like this would likely be focused on things like language training, we are fearful that this makes refugees who have not lived in Laos for a long time more susceptible to targeting,” she added.


Lao, Hmong and other Laotian ethnic groups fled the Southeast Asian country after a nine-year bombing campaign by the U.S. during a Laotian Civil War in the Vietnam era that ended in 1973. The U.S. dropped 2 million bombs and artillery in the country, carried out by the CIA. The bombings were part of a conflict called the Secret War and made Laos the most heavily bombed nation per capita in history.


Many of those refugees resettled in the United States, which is home to about 186,000 foreign-born Laotians, according to the 2017 American Community Survey.

MORE U.S. funding reintegration program in Laos for Laotian and Hmong refugees