According to the report of United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, 1/3 of Vietnamese boat people died at sea by killing, storms, illness and food shortage.
In response to major shifts in US and international policies toward the Vietnamese boat people, they moved their headquarters to Northern Virginia to concentrate on advocacy.
When most boat people were either repatriated or resettled, they shifted their focus to domestic programs for Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in communities all across America.
As a direct result of working with KAT, a national consortium of organizations under the guidance of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, they founded branches in Bayou La Batre, New Orleans, and Biloxi.
Working as case managers through KAT, they boosted many families from misery to self-sufficiency through programs to rebuild everything from homes and bank accounts to social networks.
In the course of more than two years following Katrina, the BPSOS KAT teams assisted close to 4,000 families, securing them $16.5 million in assistance, placing 850 into homes, and referring 265 to jobs; built capacity for 12 faith-based and community organizations to serve hurricane victims, including raising over $200,000 to support their activities; and established a system to disseminate news and information directly to some 5,000 Vietnamese households via the press, radio, and television.
In 1999, over 200 Vietnamese and Chinese workers were tricked into paying thousands of dollars each in order to travel to work in a sewing factory on the island of American Samoa.
However, once there, the workers were beaten, confined to the factory, barely fed, and forced to live in filthy conditions while the employer kept their travel documents.
Since then, international pressure from BPSOS, the State Department, and members of the US Congress has helped them return home, as they wished, with a measure of dignity.
BPSOS works with International Human Rights Society to maintain the list of dissidents arrested since August 2007, when the ongoing massive government crackdown started.
Information collected is published in the annual Vietnam Country Report, which is distributed to members of Congress, relevant Administration agencies, and human rights organizations.