Even if you weren’t around at the time, you probably know about the Vietnam War, or think you do. The secret war in Laos is remembered not so much. To counter North Vietnamese soldiers who had slipped across the border, the C.I.A. oversaw a fifteen-year covert war in Laos. (“Covert” meaning to keep news of it away from Americans who were already fed up with the Vietnam War.) U.S. aircraft dropped more bombs on Laos than they did on Japan in WWII.
The C.I.A. recruited thousands of Hmongs to fight on the ground against the communist forces so Americans wouldn’t have to. The Hmong ethnic group had a historically contentious relationship with the Laotian rulers. An estimated 100,000 Hmongs died – compared to 58,000 U.S. deaths in Vietnam. The C.I.A.’s official version makes only a single incidental mention of ethnic-Hmong participation. The U.S. left Laos and Vietnam in 1975, the communists took control and 250,000 Hmong refugees fled to Thailand. You would expect a grateful U.S. to welcome them into our country. Of course you would be wrong.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to a Hmong population of 40,000; nearly 25,000 reside in the Fresno area of California’s Central Valley. The current administration in Washington D.C. thinks that’s too many. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (U.S.C.I.S.) has begun efforts to denaturalize and deport naturalized citizens. The Laos government still holds a fifty-year grudge. Deporting a Hmong person to Laos puts that person into mortal danger. That would include the children and relatives of Hmong guerrillas who were recruited by the C.I.A. and fought on the U.S. side. As translators and interpreters in Iraq and the Middle East are learning, loyalty to the U.S. is a one-way path.
