Summary: The United States has a continuing special interest in the protection and welfare of many Vietnamese and other ethnic groups in Southeast Asia (including former employees of the U.S. government and others closely linked to the U.S. presence in Vietnam before 1975) and family members of persons now in the United States. Since 1975, the United States has resettled hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from the region, including nearly 13,000 Indo-Chinese refugees under the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), which was an arrangement for achieving a long-lasting solution to the continuing flow of asylum seekers in Southeast Asia. This report reviews the implementation of the CPA. GAO (1) determines whether the first-asylum countries of Hong Kong and Indonesia implemented CPA refugee status determination procedures in accordance with international standards and criteria, (2) provides information on alleged corruption in the program, and (3) ascertains whether asylum seekers returning to Vietnam were persecuted. GAO also discusses U.S. and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees costs associated with implementing the CPA.
