David Obey: “The gentleman referred to Hmong refugees. For those people who do not understand who they are, during the Vietnam war…”

“The gentleman referred to Hmong refugees. For those people who do not understand who they are, during the Vietnam war, the Hmong did our CIA's dirty work in Laos. They took a lot of guff. They suffered a lot of casualties. When the war effort collapsed, a lot of them came to this country. More are now coming. If we did not want to incur more obligation to the Hmong, then we should not have asked for their help undercover during the Vietnam war. It is just that simple. They performed a service for this country and that is the reason that they are now here, because their country has collapsed. The problem, however, is that when the Federal Government made a foreign policy decision to allow them into this country, it did not follow up that decision with the provision to deliver adequate support to the local districts so that education costs, welfare costs, and other costs would not have to be borne by local taxpayers who never made that foreign policy decision.”