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:
“What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array through the always hostile country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles.”
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“An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.”
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““Why visit the playhouse to see the famous Parisian models, ... when one can see the French damsels, Norma and Diana? Their names have been known on both continents, because everything goes as it will, and those that cannot be satisfied with these must surely be of a queer nature.””
—For the City of New Orleans, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)