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| - The Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000 (H.R. 371; Pub.L. 106-207; 114 Stat. 316.) is &Se legislation which granted Hmong and ethnic Laotian veterans, who were legal refugee aliens in the US (political refugees, facing political persecution, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations or genocide) from the communist Lao government, and who also served in U.S.-backed guerrilla, or US special forces-backed units in Laos, during the Vietnam War, "an exemption from the English language requirement and special consideration for civics testing for certain refugees from Laos applying for naturalization." The initial Act gave these alien veterans eighteen months since the day of the bill's passage by the U.S. Congress, and its signature by the President of the United States, to file a natural (en)
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| - The Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000 (H.R. 371; Pub.L. 106-207; 114 Stat. 316.) is &Se legislation which granted Hmong and ethnic Laotian veterans, who were legal refugee aliens in the US (political refugees, facing political persecution, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations or genocide) from the communist Lao government, and who also served in U.S.-backed guerrilla, or US special forces-backed units in Laos, during the Vietnam War, "an exemption from the English language requirement and special consideration for civics testing for certain refugees from Laos applying for naturalization." The initial Act gave these alien veterans eighteen months since the day of the bill's passage by the U.S. Congress, and its signature by the President of the United States, to file a naturalization application for honorary U.S. citizenship. However, the Act was later amended by additional legislation passed by the United States Congress which extended the N-400 filing date by an additional 18 months. The legislation was passed in bipartisan fashion by the then Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives, and U.S. Senate, and signed into law at the White House by President Bill Clinton on May 26, 2000. Primary House backers of the original House bill authored by Representative Bruce Vento (D-MN) included Congressmen Lamar Smith (R-TX),Immigration Subcommittee Chairman, Mel Watt, (D-NC) Immigration Subcommittee, Vice Chairman, Calvin Dooley, (D-CA) Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Il), Steve Gunderson (R-WI), Richard Pombo (R-CA), George Radanovich (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Wally Herger (R-CA), Tim Holden (D-PA), Howard Coble (R-NC), Robert Dornan (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (senior) (R-CA) and others. In the Senate, the bill was introduced and advanced by Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and others, including Senator Rod Grams (R-MN), as well as Wisconsin Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI), Herb Kohl (D-WI), et al. In its formative stages in the early 1990s, the bill was researched, developed, backed and spearheaded by the nation's largest non-profit ethnic Hmong and Laotian veterans organizations, including the Central Valley, California-based Lao Veterans of America Institute and the Washington, D.C.-based Lao Veterans of America,Inc. (LVA) who testified in support of the legislation in 1997 at Committee hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives and Congress and who repeatedly mobilized in support of the bill's passage. Colonel Wangyee Vang, President of the Lao Veterans of America Institute, Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis, the Lao Veterans of America, Inc. and others, helped educate and mobilized the Lao- and Hmong-American community across the United States to support passage of the legislation. Mr. Philip Smith, the LVA, Lao Veterans of America Institute, the Center for Public Policy Analysis, and others, also urged passage of two additional pieces of legislation, one to grant an additional 18 months to implement the bill (passed in 2001), another to grant citizenship to Hmong veterans widows. Lao Hmong General Vang Pao, the most influential leader in the Hmong community prior to his decline and death in the United States, also backed passage of the legislation. As a result of the Hmong Veterans Naturalization Act tens of thousands of ethnic Laotian and Hmong veterans received American citizenship. (en)
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