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VIETNAM <br />27 <br />Citizenship: By law the government considers anyone born to at least one <br />Vietnamese - citizen parent to be a citizen. There are also provisions for persons <br />who do not have a Vietnamese - citizen parent to acquire citizenship under certain <br />conditions. Emigrants who acquire another country's citizenship generally are <br />considered still to be Vietnamese citizens unless they formally renounce their <br />Vietnamese citizenship. However, in practice the government treated overseas <br />Vietnamese as citizens of their adopted country. Legislation seeks to clarify this <br />apparent discrepancy by allowing for dual citizenship. The government generally <br />encouraged visits and investment by such persons but sometimes monitored them <br />carefully. The government continued to liberalize travel restrictions for overseas <br />Vietnamese, including permitting visa -free travel and permitting individuals to <br />petition to receive Vietnamese passports. <br />Protection of Refugees <br />The law does not provide for the granting of refugee status, and the government <br />has not established a system for providing protection to refugees. <br />Access to Asylum: The law does not provide for the granting of asylum. <br />Safe Country of Origin /Transit: Government regulations and policy do not <br />explicitly provide protection against the expulsion or return of persons where their <br />lives or freedom would be threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, <br />membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. No such cases were <br />reported during the year. <br />Stateless Persons <br />The country's largest stateless group consisted of approximately 9,500 Cambodian <br />residents who sought refuge in Vietnam in the 1970s and were denied the right to <br />return by the government of Cambodia, which asserted no proof existed that these <br />individuals had ever possessed Cambodian citizenship. Almost all were ethnic <br />Chinese or Vietnamese whom authorities initially settled in four refugee camps in <br />and around Ho Chi Minh City. When humanitarian assistance in these camps <br />ceased in 1994, an estimated 7,000 refugees left the camps in search of work and <br />opportunities in Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding area. An additional 2,100 <br />remained in four villages in which the camps once operated. Many had children <br />and grandchildren born in Vietnam, but neither the original refugees nor their <br />children enjoy the same rights as Vietnamese citizens, including the right to <br />