The Orderly Departure Program (ODP) was a program to permit immigration of Vietnamese refugees to the United States of America, instituted in 1979 under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Later, following normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the United States enacted legislation and established direct communication with the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to facilitate emigration from Vietnam under the program.
The Orderly Departure Program office was initially established in Bangkok, Thailand, in January 1980. Over the course of its work the ODP was able to assist nearly 500,000 Vietnamese refugees in resettling in the United States. On September 14, 1994, registration for the ODP was closed. In 1999 the ODP office in Bangkok was closed and the remaining open cases were transferred to the Refugee Resettlement Section at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The United States and Vietnam signed an agreement on Tuesday Nov 15, 2005, which allows those Vietnamese to immigrate who were not able to do so before the humanitarian program ended in 1994.
Famous quotes containing the words orderly, departure and/or program:
“I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 1:3,4.
“This house was but a slight departure from the hollow tree, which the bear still inhabits,—being a hollow made with trees piled up, with a coating of bark like its original.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)