Hmong Labeled Terrorists, Denied Green Cards

My maternal grandparents recently resettled in the United States from Thailand, but my grandfather struggles because he does not have full citizenship. It has been over a year since my grandparents applied for their Green Cards. Everyone in the family, my grandmother, two aunts, and two uncles all received theirs, except my grandfather.

I, Sandy, a 24-year-old Hmong-American, remember the first day I met my grandparents for the first time in a country far from my home.

It was spring 2004, and I was one of 22 delegates embarking to Wat Tham Krabok, Thailand, as part of the Hmong Resettlement Task Force (HRTF). Our mission was to learn about, advocate for, and be a resource to the newly arriving Hmong refugees who would soon make their home in America.

As the Vietnam War escalated in Southeast Asia, the United States recruited more than 40,000 Hmong men in Laos to take up arms to fight communism on behalf of this government, in a covert operation known as the Secret War. They rescued American pilots who had been shot down, guarded the Ho Chi Minh trail, gathered intelligence, provided information about the landscape, and suffered enormous casualties, dying at a ratio of 10 to one in comparison to their American allies.

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