The Orderly Departure Program (1979 onward)

A legal route out of Vietnam that replaced, for many, the danger of the sea.

An alternative to the boats

By 1979 the flight of boat people from Vietnam had become a humanitarian emergency, with many dying at sea. That year the UN refugee agency and Vietnam agreed on the Orderly Departure Program, which allowed people to leave Vietnam directly and legally for resettlement abroad.

Who came

Over the following two decades, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese came to the United States through the program, including family members of earlier refugees, Amerasian children, and former re-education camp prisoners and their families.