Baldwin Park political activist says deportation will lead to torture and death in Vietnam

By Zen Vuong, Pasadena Star-News

PASADENA – Wearing a gray suit and baby blue tie, Vinh Tan Nguyen held both the Vietnam and U.S. flags in his left hand Tuesday morning as he explained why U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges should not deport a pro-democracy activist back to communist Vietnam.

About 125 Vietnamese-Americans staged a demonstration in front of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Appellate Court in Pasadena on Tuesday to stop the deportation of Vinh Nguyen, right, to Vietnam. Walt Mancini — Staff Photographer

Some 100 supporters — about 60 of whom arrived in a white tour bus from Orange County — paced the front of Richard H. Chambers Courthouse in Pasadena. Some demonstrators wore fatigues and berets. Others held U.S. and Vietnam flags and a few others supported banners that said, “No human rights in Vietnam. Do not deport Vinh Nguyen to communist country.”

A former South Vietnam general, two elderly pilots and a naval officer walked or rode wheelchairs with the political activist group.

Tim Nguyen, Vinh Nguyen’s 87-year-old mother, flew from Seattle to support her son, a Baldwin Park resident. She sat in a wheelchair as she kept warm with a scarf resembling the Vietnamese flag.

“If he goes back to Vietnam, they will capture him and kill him,” she said in Vietnamese as she held onto a small American flag.

Since 1995 Vinh Nguyen, 58, has been a member of Government of Free Vietnam, an anti-communist political organization with headquarters in Garden Grove. Its goal is to dismantle the Vietnamese government and to establish a democracy.

Although Nguyen once had a Green Card, the Assistant U.S. Attorney Lyle Jentzer argued Nguyen’s most recent felony charge warrants a 2009 decision to deport Nguyen.

In addition to being found guilty of spousal abuse and for packing explosives in the Philippines, Nguyen’s most recent offense of using his brother’s passport to go to Manila is a felony. He served about six years for this offense.

This immigration case is nuanced — had the abuse case involved Nguyen’s wife, and not his girlfriend, Nguyen could have been found guilty of moral turpitude and shipped to a home he left in 1983.

Jentzer claimed Nguyen’s use of a false passport constituted an act of terrorism. Thus, he said, Nguyen doesn’t belong in the U.S.

Read the full article by Zen Vuong of Pasadena Star-News.