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But Ford became the savior to those lucky enough to escape the taking of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army. "I pray no American president is ever again faced with this grave option," Ford said at a public forum on the legacy of the Vietnam War 25 years later. "I still grieve over those we were unable to rescue." He added that he was thankful America was able to relocate 130,000 Vietnamese refugees (less than 1 percent of South Vietnam's population) and that "to do less would have added moral shame to humiliation."
My family and those other blessed South Vietnamese found ourselves stuck in refugee camps across the United States. Outside the camps, public sentiment against Vietnamese refugees ran high, although at the time we did not feel it directly. The book on Vietnam had been closed for most Americans until the refugees arrived in unprecedented numbers. Only the Hungarian and Cuban refugee resettlements were of comparable scale. Newspapers portrayed the country as split on what to do with the refugees.