HF 2216

as introduced - 81st Legislature (1999 - 2000) Posted on 12/15/2009 12:00am

  1.1                             A resolution
  1.2             memorializing the President and Congress to honor 
  1.3             Hmong and Lao combat veterans by easing naturalization 
  1.4             requirements for those who served in the U.S. Secret 
  1.5             Army during the Vietnam War and enacting H.R. 371, the 
  1.6             Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 1999. 
  1.7      
  1.8      WHEREAS, many Hmong and Lao Special Guerilla Units fought 
  1.9   for and with U.S. clandestine and armed forces during the 
  1.10  Vietnam War, and more than 35,000 soldiers were killed, along 
  1.11  with countless numbers who were wounded while fighting alongside 
  1.12  their American allies; and 
  1.13     WHEREAS, the White House National Security Council, under 
  1.14  President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, and 
  1.15  President Richard Nixon, in joint cooperation with the U.S. 
  1.16  Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, 
  1.17  relied upon Hmong and Lao Special Guerilla Units and air units 
  1.18  in Laos for ultra-sensitive intelligence gathering programs, 
  1.19  including the highly classified LIMA SITE 85, guarded by the 
  1.20  U.S. Secret Army commanded by General Vang Pao, which allowed 
  1.21  U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force planes to conduct vital all-weather 
  1.22  and night bombing of enemy targets in North Vietnam and along 
  1.23  the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and 
  1.24     WHEREAS, they were told by senior officials of our 
  1.25  government that the United States would not abandon them nor 
  1.26  forsake their care and well-being if they enlisted and fought in 
  2.1   the U.S. Secret Army with Air America, and if the Americans 
  2.2   withdrew from Southeast Asia; and 
  2.3      WHEREAS, many were forced to flee Laos after the U.S. 
  2.4   departure to avoid ethnic cleansing and genocide for their 
  2.5   unique covert activities on behalf of America's clandestine and 
  2.6   armed forces; and 
  2.7      WHEREAS, many of the Hmong and Lao soldiers and their 
  2.8   refugee families have been accepted into our country as legal 
  2.9   immigrants; and 
  2.10     WHEREAS, while fighting for the United States, many of 
  2.11  these veterans, as young soldiers, had little or no opportunity 
  2.12  for education in their mountain homelands, where they had no 
  2.13  schools or written language, and therefore had great difficulty 
  2.14  learning American customs and the level of English needed to 
  2.15  qualify for U.S. citizenship; and 
  2.16     WHEREAS, Lao Veterans of America, Inc., a national, 
  2.17  nonprofit veterans organization with chapters in Minnesota and 
  2.18  across the United States, has successfully pressed the Hmong 
  2.19  Veterans' Naturalization Act in the United States Congress 
  2.20  through the House Judiciary Committee with over 77 bipartisan 
  2.21  cosponsors; and 
  2.22     WHEREAS, Lao Veterans of America, whose members comprise 
  2.23  the Hmong and Lao survivors of the U.S. Secret Army, were 
  2.24  honored for the first time since the fall of Southeast Asia to 
  2.25  Communism by U.S. officials and the U.S. Congress in 1997 in 
  2.26  historic National Recognition Ceremonies on Capitol Hill, the 
  2.27  Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery 
  2.28  with long-overdue honor, war medals, U.S. Congressional 
  2.29  citations, and a living monument dedicated to them and their 
  2.30  American advisors at Arlington National Cemetery; NOW, 
  2.31  THEREFORE, 
  2.32     BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota 
  2.33  that it urges the President and the Congress of the United 
  2.34  States to honor our nation's commitment to those Hmong and Lao 
  2.35  soldiers who served in the U.S. Secret Army during the Vietnam 
  2.36  War by passing and signing into law the Hmong Veterans' 
  3.1   Naturalization Act of 1999. 
  3.2      BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the 
  3.3   State of Minnesota is directed to prepare copies of this 
  3.4   memorial and transmit them to the President of the United 
  3.5   States, the President and the Secretary of the United States 
  3.6   Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk of the United States House of 
  3.7   Representatives, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
  3.8   the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the chair of the 
  3.9   Senate Armed Services Committee, the chair of the House Armed 
  3.10  Services Committee, the chair of the Senate Intelligence 
  3.11  Committee, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and 
  3.12  Minnesota's Senators and Representatives in Congress.