Alan Lowenthal: “First, I, too, would like to thank my colleague, Representative Walters, for yielding and for holding this Special…”

“First, I, too, would like to thank my colleague, Representative Walters, for yielding and for holding this Special Order. I would also like to thank Representatives Correa, Royce, LaMalfa, and Green for joining us. Well, we are here once again, and I am outraged. We are speaking on behalf of another American citizen, and that is really important, an American citizen who was arbitrarily detained. He was imprisoned on vague allegations by the Communist Government of Vietnam. Let's understand who we are talking about, as has been pointed out. Michael Nguyen is a father of four daughters. He was on a trip to Vietnam with his family--really, with his friends, not so much his family but friends. When he didn't return home at the end of the trip, his family frantically contacted officials. Let's see what happened. He was taken off a bus, as he was traveling from the city of Da Nang to Saigon, by public security officials. He was then detained, imprisoned, and neither his family, and what is also important, nor the United States Government were notified until after 10 days after he was arrested. As part of an agreement between the Government of Vietnam and the United States, the Vietnamese Government must notify the United States within 96 hours if they have arrested an American citizen, which they have failed to do. Since then, we have learned very little about why Michael was detained.…”