Hello, Freedom Man

Under the Trump administration, the United States has pushed aggressively to deport Southeast Asian Americans with criminal records. Hurt that members of the Vietnamese community would support this action, guest producer Thanh Tan (creator of the podcast “Second Wave”) seeks out the people at risk of deportation — and the organizers fighting to keep them in the only home they’ve known. Along the way, she learns to embrace a new direction for Vietnamese Americans confronting the deeply rooted narrative of “the good refugee.”

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Resources and Recommended Reading

Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress and prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones.

"Know Your Rights" resources to prepare for ICE raids written in Arabic, Bangla, Burmese, Chinese, Dar/Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Karen, Khemer, Korean, Nepali, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese, compiled by the Asian American Federation in NY.

Primary sources:

• The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which laid much groundwork for today’s deportations
• The 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Vietnam
• President Trump’s Jan 25, 2017 Executive Order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement
• President Trump’s Jan 25, 2017 Executive Order declaring that the presence of “removable aliens” from “foreign nations that refuse the repatriation of their nationals” is “contrary to the national interest”
• Text of President Trump’s Jan 27, 2017 Executive Order temporarily ceasing admission of refugees to the United States (a.k.a. “the travel ban”)
• Migration Policy Institute dataset on U.S. annual refugee resettlement ceilings and refugee admissions, starting from 1980
• ICE datasets on deportations from FY 2011 through FY 2018

Reporting and analysis on the federal government’s role in detention and deportation of immigrants:

• “City of Fear” by New York Magazine and The Marshall Project
• “The Disastrous, Forgotten 1996 Law That Created Today’s Immigration Problem” by Dara Lind, for Vox
• “ICE and the Banality of Spin” by Eileen Guo, for Topic
• “U.S.: 20 Years of Immigrant Abuses,” a summary of reports by Human Rights Watch on harm caused by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act

Reporting and analysis on the detention and deportation of Vietnamese Americans and Cambodian Americans:

• “As Cambodian Deportations Resume, Community Looks for Ways to Cope” by Agnes Constante, for NBC Asian America
• “Deported: A Grassroots Movement” (5-part docuseries) by Sahra V. Nguyen, for NBC Asian America
• “Fear Grips Immigrants Who Fled Here to Escape Genocide” by Matt Driscoll, for The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington
• “A State of Captivity: Immigrants Detained Repeatedly for Old Crimes” by Anjali Enjeti, for Guernica Magazine
• “Trump Is Pushing Vietnam to Accept Deportees Who Have Lived in the US for Over 20 years” by Dara Lind, for Vox
• “Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees” by Charles Dunst and Krishnadev Calamur, for The Atlantic
• “The U.S. Ambassador Who Crossed Trump on Immigration” by Mike Ives, for the New York Times

Shout Outs

John Woo and Kerry Donahue voiced the English translations of Thanh’s parents. Thanks to Julia Preston and Willoughby Mariano for their advice on reporting this story.

Credits

Produced by Thanh Tan and James Boo

Edited by Julia Shu and Cheryl Devall

Production support by Austin Jenkins, Jamala Henderson, Kevin Rinker, and Merk Nguyen

Sound engineering by Timothy Lou Ly

Theme music by Dorian Love

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

Self Evident is a Studiotobe production. Season 1 is presented by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), the Ford Foundation, and our listener community. Our show was incubated at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP.

About CAAM: CAAM (Center for Asian American Media) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. CAAM does this by funding, producing, distributing, and exhibiting works in film, television, and digital media. For more information on CAAM, please visit www.caamedia.org. With support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CAAM provides production funding to independent producers who make engaging Asian American works for public media.