Official Urges Repatriation of Immigrant Criminals : Crackdown: Proposal by Westminster councilman is prompted by home invasions and extortions in the Vietnamese-American community.

WESTMINSTER —  Councilman Tony Lam, believed to be the first Vietnamese elected official in the United States, has called for the deportation of any non-citizen convicted of a serious crime, a proposal aimed at the gang problem plaguing the Southeast-Asian community here.

In a meeting with a citizens group in Little Saigon on Sunday, Lam proposed forced repatriation to address a primary concern among the estimated 140,000 Vietnamese-Americans in Orange County: “home invasions” and extortions by gang members.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, pitched the same idea at the meeting. Rohrabacher’s top aide, Kathleen Hollingsworth, said Monday that his proposal is not meant to single out Vietnamese-Americans.

“The congressman’s concern is with aliens from any part of the world, people who are essentially guests in this country,” Hollingsworth said. “If they are found guilty of any felony, they should be deported.”

For those familiar with Lam’s politics, the proposal might not be surprising. Like many Vietnamese-Americans in the county, Lam is a law-and-order conservative.

He made “get tough on crime” the cornerstone of his campaign for a city council seat last November and advocated deportation of gang members convicted of crimes who are not U.S. citizens.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service currently may deport illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for five years or less who are convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude,” such as assault, robbery or theft, said INS official Michael Flynn.

An immigrant convicted of a drug-related offense is subject to deportation regardless of length of stay, Flynn added.

But there are diplomatic barriers.

“We cannot deport someone to a country without authorization of that country,” Flynn said. “With respect to Cuba and Vietnam, it’s difficult to do because we don’t have diplomatic relations with them.”

About 14,000 inmates now incarcerated in California are illegal immigrants serving out their sentences before being turned over to the INS for possible deportation, Flynn said.

While some Vietnamese-Americans applaud Lam’s tough stance on gangs, others say the measure may be too harsh. Sending convicts back to the Communist regime in Vietnam is akin to a death sentence, they said.

“The American law system offers people a chance to rehabilitate,” said Dr. Co D.L. Pham, president of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and a community leader. “There should be programs to help people, to give people a chance to rehabilitate. . . . If you deport them, you condemn them” to death.

But Yen Do, editor of the Nguoi Viet Daily News, a Vietnamese-language publication, said deportation may be an effective way to deter crime.

“This is a powerful psychological tool,” he said. Do, however, doubted that the proposal could be carried out.

A similar proposal was made recently by Tom Houston, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate. He came under attack after he called for the deportation of members of two violent gangs, made up of predominantly Latino youths who are illegal immigrants.