SEARR CAMPAIGN

Southeast Asian Relief & Responsibility (SEARR) Campaign

The SEARR Campaign continues a decades long effort to free our people from generational cycles of displacement and heal our communities from this collective trauma. We embark on a multi-year campaign aiming to win concrete relief for our people by 2025, which marks the 50th year anniversary of the end of the US wars in Southeast Asia. This campaign seeks to hold the U.S. accountable for the harm and violence inflicted on our people.

We have developed a national policy platform introducing our legislative priorities that

For more information about the campaign or questions, you can reach out to the SEARR Campaign coordinators, Socheatta Meng at soche@seafn.net and Kevin Lam at kevin@seafn.net.

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(1) demand for the U.S. to take responsibility for the destabilization of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam due to it’s military intervention during the war,
(2) call for immediate relief for our people who have been targeted for detentions and deportations since the early 2000s.

Why the SEARR Campaign?

For 45+ years, our communities have experienced irreparable harm and violence at the hands of the U.S. government through the destabilization of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from war and genocide, to the failed refugee resettlement process that drove our people into the carceral system, and the passage of harmful policies that funneled Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants from the prison-to-deportation pipeline.

From escaping war and genocide forty years ago, our people still have not been able to rest and heal. 20+ years of Southeast Asian grassroots organizing against deportations and building up SEA leadership, organizations and formations, has led us to this historical moment to push forward a national campaign to end the mass detentions and deportations of our people. The shift in the political landscape in 2021 created an opening for us to coalesce our organizing towards a national campaign that will demand for U.S. accountability for the violence its caused on our people, and allow for our communities to begin healing.

This campaign is part of our larger vision of reimagining our immigration system through an abolitionist framework, and working towards the world that we know is possible.

What Proposals Does the SEARR Platform Include?

The SEARR Platform encompasses two key parts (1) existing legislation we are prioritizing that aligns with our demand for the U.S. to take responsibility for its violence inflicted on our communities, (2) a bill to bring about immediate relief for Southeast Asian refugees who have been living in limbo for decades fearing detention and deportation.

Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act (H.R. 3518)  

  • Provide health care and social services for for affected Vietnamese people by Agent Orange

  • Provide health care for affected Vietnamese Americans and their offspring

  • Provide medical assistance and disability benefits to affected children of American Vietnam veterans

  • Clean up the lands and restore eco-systems contaminated by Agent Orange/dioxin in Vietnam

  • Conduct research into the health effects of Agent Orange/dioxin in the U.S. and Vietnam.

Legacies of War Recognition and Unexploded Ordnance Removal Act
(H.R. 9540 / S.3795)

  • Authorize $100,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2021 through 2025 to be provided for humanitarian assistance programs (i.e. developing national surveys of UXOs in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia)

  • Allocate funding to support survivors and victims of the mass bombings, and for removal of unexploded ordnance UXO and other explosive remnants of war

  • Acknowledge the U.S.’s longstanding commitment to provide financial support for defining and UXO removal in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

  • Recognize the tragic legacies of war left from this conflict, and the toll it continues to have on civilians to this day

New Way Forward Act (H.R. 2374)

  • Pushes back on mass incarceration

  • Restores vital due process protections

  • Ends federal prison sentences and criminal prosecutions for people who cross the border seeking freedom, safety, opportunity, or to come home.

  • Creates a process for people previously ordered deported to apply for the opportunity to come home to the U.S. and reunite with their families

PART 1: Existing Southeast Asian and Anti-Deportation Legislation 

The SEARR Platform includes partnerships with existing policy campaigns that demand U.S. responsibility for its military intervention in Southeast Asia and ending deportations.

Part 2: Immediate Relief for Southeast Asian community members facing deportation

We know that dismantling the deportation machine is a long-term effort, and in that long-term push, our community members will continue to face detention and deportation. Part 2 of our policy platform seeks to bring immediate relief for our impacted community members who are fighting their deportation order every day, while trying to care and support to their loved ones. This platform includes the Southeast Asian Deportation Relief Act (SEADRA). SEADRA is a historic bill that transforms the lives of refugee families.

Ends detentions and deportations for SEAs who arrived before 2008: Establishes that Southeast Asian community members from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam cannot be deported.

Extends work authorization for 5 years: Permanently extend work authorization for Southeast Asian community members with final orders of removal.

Limits ICE check-ins to every 5 years and virtually

Establishes a pathway to return for SEAs who have already been deported 

Allows SEAs to vacate their removal orders, for both SEAs who have already been deported and SEAs who are still in the US.

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