between the U.S. Government and the Vietnamese Government. The U.S. Government and the Vietnamese Government maintain their respective legal positions relative to Vietnamese citizens who departed Vietnam for the United States prior to that date . (9) The United States under President George Bush and President Barack Obama recognized the 2008 Vietnam-U.S. MOU’s protection for pre-1995 refugees from deportation. (10) In 2019, President Trump’s Administration began to renegotiate the 2008 Vietnam-U.S. MOU to expand the categories of immigrants it could deport, including permanent residents who have committed certain minor crimes and others who came to the United States as children after the Vietnam War. (11) In February 2018, Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta filed a class action lawsuit in the name of Orange County resident Hoang Trinh and six other refugees who all came to the U.S. before the 1995 date and became legal permanent residents. Due to criminal convictions, they all lost their green cards, making them subject to deportation. Under the 2008 Vietnam-U.S. MOU, they should be protected from deportation. The refugees were held in prolonged detention in violation of a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision restricting overlong detention. (12) In August 2018, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney ruled that the plaintiffs in the class action presented a plausible claim that the government is now not abiding by a longstanding practice of not removing pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants and by the 2008 diplomatic agreement. . 3. Deferral of removal for nationals of Vietnam with removal orders (a) Deferral of removal Except as provided in subsection (b), an alien may not be removed for the 24-month period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act if the alien— (1) is a national of Vietnam