Nguyen was nine when he boarded a boat alone to escape the communist regime in Vietnam for the United States. Some 40 years later, he returned in shackles, deported from the only country he really knows to one he can scarcely remember.​ In the 2017 fiscal year, 71 Vietnamese nationals were deported from the US. 76 have been sent so far since October 2017. The move comes as immigration officials ramp up raids and removals of aliens from Mexico, Cambodia, Myanmar and elsewhere who Trump has vowed to crack down on.