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   On Father’s Day 2012, Cindy met Tin Pham at a barbeque on Bradenton Beach where he was volunteering to cook for friends. They fell in love. Both are refugees from Vietnam. 

    They married, became members of The Bridge Church, bought a beautiful home just down the street from Bradenton Country Club, and in 2014 their little girl was born. The photographs that are scattered throughout the house show the perfect happy and successful American family. Cindy works for the School Board of Manatee County where she instructs other teachers on techniques to teach failing students how to excel at reading. He is a successful businessman with a nail salon on Manatee Avenue.

    Their home is festively decorated for Christmas and the ABC’s hang from a banner on the dining room wall so that their four-year-old daughter can practice for the pre-school she attends at Bradenton Christian School.

    Although they both escaped the Vietnam War at early ages, their stories vastly differ. Cindy arrived in California sponsored by World Vision, a global Christian humanitarian organization. She came to the U.S. with both of her parents, was nurtured and schooled and loved. She and her parents became citizens when she turned 18 and then she was off to college at Florida Atlantic University and then graduate school.

    Tin, on the other hand, has a vastly different story. His father had been separated from the family by the Communists, and his mother was left to raise four children. He recalls the day his older brother told him they were going fishing after school. He was eight-years-old, and his brother 10. He remembers dropping off his books and going to the waterfront, getting into a boat and wondering why his grandmother and uncle were there and why they were in such a big boat.

    More and more people filled the boat and he found out later there were 72 people in a 40-foot boat. They floated for six days in the Pacific Ocean without food or water. Boats passed but no one stopped to help. People were starving, and he passed out. Finally, they were found by an oil driller who supplied them with food and water and directions on how to get to an Indonesia island, where they were taken in.

    An uncle who had fought along with the American soldiers during the war had already escaped and relocated to Florida. When he found out that they had escaped he went to a Catholic church for help in sponsoring his family. The process took two years. The four new refugees stayed with him for a few years, then moved into another house in Boca Raton.

    Tin’s grandmother spoke no English, and his uncle was abusive. He went to public school in Boca Raton with few skills to cope in his new environment in predominately African American and Hispanic schools. He was bullied at school for being the only Asian, and then his uncle beat him at home for getting into trouble. He attended more than five schools in two years, and finally dropped out in ninth grade and ran away from the abuse. He was only 15. He remembers the day he quit. He cried because he wanted to stay in school, but it was too hard to cope.

    He lived on the streets and regrets the time he spent with the wrong friends, most of whom were older than him. At the age of 17 he was convicted as an adult of a felony. He spent five years in prison and then four years in an ICE detention center. His green card was taken away, but he was not deported because Vietnam was still a communist country with no diplomatic ties to the US. He signed papers as a minor giving up his rights, without legal representation or an interpreter.

    During that time, he earned his GED, a residential carpenter certificate, an electrical house wiring certificate and a certificate in electronic repair. He also gained a perfect command of the English language and a resolve to make his life better when it was all done.

    With his new skills he got a job in construction, then worked to add another profession to his resume as a nail technician. He heard that the economy in Bradenton was really growing, and in 2004, he moved once again to start a better life.

    Tin had saved enough money to open his own business. The upscale Pink & White Nail Salon has been flourishing in the Beachway Plaza in NW Bradenton for 14 years. He currently employees nine people.  He talks fondly about an employee he mentored who came to work for him while in high school, and how he watched her over the years, buy her first car, find a boyfriend, complete college, get married, have her own children, and then go into the medical business. He has many more stories of relationships built not only through his business and community, but through his ministries through his church.

    Through the years he had lost touch with his parents, but learned that they had sacrificed by sending the two older boys and the uncle who was still a teenager and the grandmother on that boat that day. They stayed behind with the younger boys and tried to leave several times but were caught and put in concentration camps.

   Tin is one of the Vietnamese immigrants who could be at risk of deportation under a new re-interpretation of a long-standing agreement with Vietnam that largely has protected Vietnamese citizens who entered the United States before 1995.

   At issue is a repatriation agreement signed in 2008 by President George W. Bush, which blocks deportation of Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. before July 12, 1995 — the date the two countries re-established diplomatic relations after the 1975 end of the Vietnam War.

   Earlier this year, the administration suggested it change its interpretation of that 2008 agreement to allow deportation of Vietnamese citizens who arrived before 1995 and have been convicted of crimes. 

The law does not take into account crimes committed a quarter century ago when the person was a minor.

    At the age of 43, Tin Pham and his family have become very productive and prominent members of the Bradenton community with ties to many people and groups. He employs and trains people, pays taxes, donates to various Manatee County fundraisers, belongs to the church and some small group ministries, works to feed the homeless, and just recently volunteered to clean up during the red tide.

    We as a Nation and as Christians know our responsibility and by our faith to seek justice and help provide for those unable to provide for themselves. (1 John 3:18; Matthew 5:16; 25:34-46; Philippians 2: 5-8). 

    This is our impassioned hopeful plea to your Heart; Faith; Love of man; and kindness. It is obvious Tin has paid his dues. Deportation would be a travesty.