The Atlantic is reporting that the Trump administration wants refugees from the Vietnam War to be subject to immigration laws that would allow the federal government to deport them. I would be shocked if the Trump administration would actually opt to deport Vietnamese refugees who have been here for more than a quarter century. But The Atlantic write up is disturbing, given that many of these refugees came here because they were allied with U.S. or allied forces. From the article:

When it first decided to reinterpret the 2008 deal, Donald Trump’s administration argued that only pre-1995 arrivals with criminal convictions were exempt from the agreement’s protection and eligible for deportation. Vietnam initially conceded and accepted some of those immigrants before stiffening its resistance; about a dozen Vietnamese immigrants ended up being deported from the United States. The August decision to change course, reported to a California court in October, appeared to put such moves at least temporarily on ice, but the latest shift now leaves the fate of a larger number of Vietnamese immigrants in doubt. Now no pre-1995 arrivals are exempt from the 2008 agreement’s protection.

I would love to read a clarification or a plausible defense of this from Mark Krikorian or Reihan Salam. I feel like I must be missing something.