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Nguyen, an American citizen whose mother emigrated from Vietnam to the United States in the 1970s, was visiting Ho Chi Minh City before landing a master's program in public policy at the University of Singapore. He was reportedly arrested and beaten after asking the police to remove the barricades on the path of the protesters. In a video, Nguyen is shown dragged through the streets, his face bleeding, by plainclothes police.
Judged and convicted of "disruption of public order", Nguyen was expelled on Friday after calls from his family, this Vietnam embassy newspaper and elected officials. He would be safe and in good spirits in Singapore and will soon be returning to the United States.
As we said in our previous editorial, the US government "should actively support and protect American citizens who lend their voice to the preservation and proliferation of human freedom. "And we are happy to report that this is exactly what happened." While he was in Vietnam this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue. Arresting Nguyen with officials and "encouraged a speedy resolution of his case," according to a spokesman for the State Department, calling for Nguyen's release and return safely. A bipartisan group of 19 senators and congressmen, including John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, sent a letter to Pompeo reiterating that "one of our most important responsibilities as elected officials is to protect the American people at home and abroad "and urging him to" use all diplomatic means "at his disposal" to ensure the safe return of Mr. Nguyen to the United States. These efforts have been rewarded.
It is not here that men and women Washington is there to represent, serve and protect the everyday Americans who exercise their right to vote in free and fair elections. There is a larger lesson – one that speaks of what it means to be American, to exercise one's "inalienable rights" across borders or nation-states. Among these: "Life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness."
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