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Last week, news that the Trump administration was moving to deport certain Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for decades sparked fear and anger in a community that has deep roots in California — and one that includes strong supporters of the president’s hard line on immigration, as The Los Angeles Times recently reported.

Katie Waldman, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that “it’s a priority of this administration to remove criminal aliens to their home country,” and that 7,000 Vietnamese people have removal orders.

“These are noncitizens who during previous administrations were arrested, convicted and ultimately ordered removed by a federal immigration judge,” Ms. Waldman said.

But the deportation of Vietnamese immigrants — even ones with past deportation orders — has been rare. I asked Jenny Zhao, a staff attorney with Asian-Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, which has advocated for immigrants, to talk about the possible changes. (The interview has been edited and condensed.)

Can you tell me a little about the situation for Vietnamese refugees?

Vietnamese refugees have not historically been subject to deportation from the U.S., because Vietnam did not take them back. That changed in 2008 with an agreement that allowed for the deportation of Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. after 1995.

In 2017, the Trump administration started pressuring Vietnam to take back pre-1995 refugees. From late 2017 through mid-2018, Vietnam took back about a dozen people who came over before 1995.

Then, the administration conceded that Vietnam is not taking these people back. So that’s why the meeting with Vietnamese officials that was reported last week came as such a shock.

Say I’m a member of the Vietnamese community in California and I don’t have a criminal conviction. Why should I be concerned?

These are people that fled their country with nothing and were resettled in the U.S., often in poverty-stricken neighborhoods with gang violence. They were traumatized from the war. There are a lot of people who may have criminal convictions and haven’t talked about it.

What about for Cambodian refugees?

The Cambodian community has been devastated over the past year. In 2017, the Trump administration put formal sanctions on the Cambodian government for not taking Cambodian people back. It gives you a sense of what things might look like for Vietnam.

Have you been impacted by the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Vietnamese refugees? Email us at [email protected].

California Online

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• A new federal report puts California’s homeless population this year at 129,972, a 1 percent drop from 2017. Observers say that’s a sharp contrast with the prior year, which saw a 14 percent increase in the state’s homeless population, suggesting aggressive efforts to get people into housing have been helping. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• Facebook, Twitter and Google dragged their feet on Russian interference data, a new report says. [The New York Times]

• A group of archaeologists and volunteers are helping people search the ruins of the Camp Fire for the remains of their loved ones. [Chico Enterprise-Record]

• Tech workers who got paid in company stock are using their status as shareholders to agitate for change. [The New York Times]

• After decades of protests about poor conditions, the residents — many of them older — of a housing project in San Francisco’s Chinatown are moving back into upgraded homes. But will change last? [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• William Newsom, father of Gavin Newsom, died last week. Gavin Newsom has said his father helped shape his views on drug policy and racial justice. [The New York Times]

• The future home of the Chargers and the Rams is already affecting Inglewood businesses. The owner of Ms. B’s M&M Soul Food said her rent more than doubled, to $14,000 from $6,282. [L.A. Taco]

• “It started out that computer scientists were worried nobody was listening to us. Now I’m worried that too many people are listening.” Donald Knuth, the “Yoda of Silicon Valley,” gets philosophical. [The New York Times]

• About 12 percent of California’s cities (56, to be precise) had no women serving on their councils as of last year. Los Altos just became the first to have a council of all women. [The Mercury News]

• Since it began in September, a Kern County Public Health Department program has “rescued” more than 22 tons of food that would’ve otherwise been destined for the dumpster. Officials say that’s a success in a county where one in four children go hungry each night. [The Bakersfield Californian]

• Bay Area residents are flocking to Truckee. Want to go for a weekend? Here’s what to check out in the Tahoe town. [Vogue]

And Finally …

The Figueroa, a 92-year-old hotel across from L.A. Live that just got a makeover, actually has a feminist past, our reporter Brooks Barnes wrote in a review.

It was initially built by the Y.W.C.A. as an all-female hostel of sorts, where young, aspiring actresses could stay without fear of encountering, well, male Hollywood types.

The hotel became a meeting place for what was in the 1920s a growing class of businesswomen, too, according to KCET.

Brooks wrote that some of the Fig’s redesign nods at its history, with art by women on the walls and spaces for women-centric salons. But an actual stay at the not-so-cheap hotel left him a little less than impressed.

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected].

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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