What is happening

Since January 2025, a record number of Vietnamese have been deported. ICE has been arresting and detaining more immigrants across the U.S. to fulfill Trump’s goal of carrying out the “largest deportation program” in American history. From 1998 to 2023, an average of 41 people each year were deported to Vietnam. In 2025 alone, over 1000 persons were deported to Vietnam, and we believe that number will continue to increase.

Among those at risk of detention and deportation are thousands of Vietnamese refugees who have called America home for decades, many of whom came to the U.S. as children and are now raising kids of their own. There are currently more than 9,000 people in the U.S. with removal orders to Vietnam.

Having been in ICE custody for days, weeks, or months before their deportation, deported Vietnamese Americans often arrive in Vietnam with little more than the clothes on their back. The luckier ones may have limited personal belongings if a loved one managed to navigate the red tape of dropping off a suitcase to ICE before deportation or deposited money into their ICE commissary.

Upon arrival, Vietnamese deportees are met with no resettlement agency. Many also no longer have family in Vietnam, leaving them to navigate reintegration into an unfamiliar society alone. Making matters worse, most deported people lack the necessary identification card to access even basic services in Vietnam—and the process to obtain a Vietnamese ID itself can be complex, expensive, and long.

What donations do

The Ba Lô Project aims to provide deported Vietnamese Americans the support and dignity they need to start rebuilding their lives in Vietnam from day one. Our vision, grounded in the collective experiences of prior deported Vietnamese Americans, is to begin with a simple act of community care. We want to equip every person deported to Vietnam with a starter backpack filled with items like clean underwear, a change of clothes, medicine, socks, a toothbrush, a map, a modest stipend in Vietnamese dong, and a smartphone—essential items that other Vietnamese returnees wished they had after being torn from their communities in America and dropped into Vietnam.

Your gift, no matter the amount, will provide crucial support to those being forcibly returned to Vietnam under devastating circumstances. And it will help us create the organizational infrastructure needed to sustain this mutual aid to returnees for this 2nd year. With the volume of pending deportations to Vietnam, we need to think long-term. Thank you for your solidarity and community care.

**If you are an impacted community member, we have provided a FAQ to help you prepare. Please visit www.baloproject.org.

With love and power,

The Community Care Circle 2026

We are a volunteer team of Vietnamese American executive directors, lawyers, professors, nail techs, educators, parents, impacted individuals and the diaspora community.

Data source: SEARAC, April 15th, 2026.

Art by Thi Bui teabuoy.substack.com