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in Taiwan Home Page(Samoa News - March 20,2001) - Saturday night's (March 17, 2001) Hawaiian Air flight reportedly carried 20 Vietnamese workers, plus one of the four infants born to a Vietnamese worker while she was living here.
The group was accompanied by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, who traveled here specifically to accompany the group to the U.S.
Saturday's malaga represents the first group of workers to travel to the United States instead of Vietnam.
Another group of 16 was reportedly leaving for Hawaii on last night's flight (March 19, 2001).
Samoa News was unable to learn on what legal or financial basis the foreigners are being admitted to the U.S., but it appears the U.S. Department of Justice is paving the way for the workers to settle, at least temporarily, in the U.S. so they will be available to testify as witnesses should the ongoing criminal investigation into Daewoosa result in federal prosecutions.
Such prosecutions would have to be conducted in the United States because there is no federal court of jurisdiction here. (That is why, for example, Bernard Gurr is going on trial today in Washington, D.C., in the first instance of a local resident being prosecuted for a federal crime allegedly committed in American Samoa).
Although hard facts are hard to come by, it appears that these two traveling parties may be the vanguard for more than 100 Vietnamese workers who have reportedly agreed to reside, at least temporarily, in the U.S.
The Samoa News was told that federal officials recently gave all the Vietnamese workers the option of either returning home to Vietnam or moving to the U.S., at least temporarily.
Samoa News was unable to learn where the travelers are headed, for how long, why, or whether they will return to American Samoa.
The FBI office in Honolulu could only confirm that the Saturday group traveled under the auspices of the ongoing federal investigation into Daewoosa Samoa.
The FBI said recently that they are investigating possible violations of federal laws related to Daewoosa's operations in American Samoa, and have declined to provide any further details.
Meanwhile, there are still two FBI agents and an attorney from the U.S. Department of Justice on-island conducting their investigation.
Before Saturday's departure (which was a delayed version of Friday night's flight), there were about 185 foreign former Daewoosa workers still in American Samoa.
Thus the total may now be down to about 150.
In the past few weeks, about 60 Vietnamese have returned to Vietnam. There fares were paid by the Vietnamese recruiting agencies that sent them here.
The Vietnamese government has promised to return all the workers back to Vietnam soon, but at present, no airplane tickets have been sent from Vietnam for the next group to travel.
Saturday night's (March 17, 2001) Hawaiian Air flight also reportedly
carried three of Daewoosa Samoa's former managers back to Seoul, South
Korea.
(Samoa News - March 21, 2001) - More Vietnamese workers are scheduled to depart the territory this Friday (March 23, 2001) for Honolulu, under arrangements made by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The first group of 21 Vietnamese workers left on Saturday (March 17, 2001) and a second group of 12 left Monday night (March 19, 2001).
Sources told the Samoa News that the next group will include about 60 Vietnamese, and they will depart this Friday (March 23, 2001). That will leave about 90 Vietnamese in the territory, down from about 250 a month ago.
All three groups have been pre-approved by the INS to enter the U.S. through Honolulu.
Each worker is traveling on a one-way ticket to Honolulu and the Friday (March 23, 2001) group will be once again accompanied by an INS agent who is in the territory making arrangements with local authorities.
Reportedly the Friday (March 23, 2001) group is the last one approved so far to enter the U.S. under special permission granted by the INS.
California attorney Hoang Huy Tu said in a telephone interview from Fountain Valley, California, that the special permission granted to the Vietnamese workers was arranged by the U.S. Justice Department and INS.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice are conducting an investigation into Daewoosa Samoa for possible violations of federal law. The specifics of the investigation could not be confirmed.
Tu, an immigration and criminal lawyer who operates the Fountain Valley Legal Services said yesterday that the workers are being "paroled" into the United States. They go to Honolulu before heading to other locales.
"Once they arrive in Honolulu, they contact their families and relatives, or other organizations across the country willing to sponsor them while their cases are being processed for 'T' visas," explained Tu. "In other words, from Honolulu they can start applying for the T visas."
The T visa is a new federal phenomenon that provides victims of human trafficking perpetrated by their government asylum and legal resident status in the U.S.
Just as there are "Samoan communities" in the United States, so are there Vietnamese communities. The difference is that the Vietnamese communities (e.g., Little Saigons) are much bigger.
According to Tu, the airfares are paid for by the workers, their families in the U.S., or non-profit groups. He said that 80 workers have already been granted permission to enter Honolulu, but there could be more.
"This is a good development in the case of these Vietnamese workers," said Tu, who had originally planned to travel to the territory this month to talk to workers about applying for the T visas. "They are finally going to get their case reviewed by the federal government.
"These workers have not been able to move forward until now. They have been stuck in one place, in American Samoa. This is a great development," he added.
Instead of coming to the territory, Tu is now prepared to travel to Hawaii for the processing of T visa applicants and is waiting for calls from workers now in Honolulu.
The Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. has not commented on the latest development involving its nationals, and Governor Tauese Sunia told Samoa News on Monday he was unaware of it.
In the meantime, six Vietnamese workers left Monday afternoon (March 19, 2001) for Vietnam via Auckland and Hong Kong. The tickets were paid from Hanoi, but instead of being paid by the Vietnam government (as promised), the fares were paid by the workers' families.
With the move by DOJ to admit the workers into the U.S., the cash-strapped
Vietnamese government appears to be in no hurry to come up with tickets
for the women and men who wish to return to Vietnam.
(Samoa News - March 26, 2001) - Governor Tauese Sunia of Samoa plans to file an official protest with Washington D.C. over the federal government's move to "secretly" transport Vietnamese workers to Hawaii, without even a courtesy call to the Governor's Office.
Last month (February 2001), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Justice started an investigation into Daewoosa Samoa for possible criminal violation of federal laws.
Two weeks ago, the DOJ and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began helping the Vietnamese workers fly to Honolulu with special immigration privileges so they can testify in the federal criminal case against Daewoosa Samoa and its owner that was filed last week Friday (March 23, 2001) in Honolulu federal court.
Reportedly, about 100 workers have so far taken advantage of the DOJ offer to enter the United States. By contrast, only about 60 workers have returned home to Vietnam.
Reliable sources told Samoa News that the remaining Vietnamese and Chinese workers (about 80 in number) still have the option of going to the U.S. instead of back to their communist homelands.
Tauese told reporters on Friday (March 23, 2001) that he was overjoyed that some workers are returning home, but he was seriously concerned over the latest development (which was reported by the Samoa News last week) which involved the federal government operating in American Samoa independently.
Tauese said the federal government is removing workers without the local government's knowing it.
He has already received a politely worded protest from Vietnam's Ambassador to the U.S., Le Van Bang, who had reached an agreement with Tauese to transport the workers back to Vietnam by the end of March 2001.
"The Vietnamese government wrote to me that they are saddened by the fact that the workers are being taken to Hawaii instead of Vietnam, as we had agreed," said Tauese.
"I am very, very surprised," said Tauese of the latest development in the Daewoosa saga. "The deeper I dig into this, the more I discover that the federal government has brought its agents to American Samoa to move people into Hawaii."
"It's fine with me [if the Vietnamese are allowed into the U.S.] Whatever the federal government likes to do is their business. I have always thought that our relationship with the federal government is sacred," Tauese said. But he said that the sacred relationship means that the federal government should tread carefully when it comes to intervening in local affairs.
"This matter of not informing the local government is a new development in our political relations [with the federal government]. As your governor, I feel I must protest.
"I have began protest measures to Washington D.C., on this issue. The courtesy previously accorded us has failed to materialize in this case. And I don't mind telling you that we are very disturbed. And I think that if I don't speak up, it will just become another practice that will continue on and we will have to become accustomed to."
The Governor's comments were made before the arrest of Kil-Soo Lee on local soil, and his being escorted to Hawaii under federal guard on Hawaiian Air's flight.
That same flight also carried dozens of Vietnamese workers embarking on their possible new life as American immigrants.
The flight also carried Chief Justice Michael Kruse. Coincidentally,
the first flight to carry Vietnamese workers to the U.S. carried Associate
Chief Justice Lyle Richmond (who is presiding over the civil law suit the
workers brought against Daewoosa).
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