The Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, a former railroad yard and informal trash dumping area in Lowertown St. Paul is also named for the Congressman, who lived nearby and supported this model reclamation project.

[1] Vento introduced the first bill in the US Congress to grant honorary U.S. citizenship to Laotian and Hmong veterans who served in the "U.S. Secret Army" in Laos during the Vietnam War.

The legislation, the Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000 was passed by the House and Senate following his death and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Vento worked with Hmong elders and community leaders in the Twin Cities and across the United States, including Cherzong Vang, Colonel Wangyee Vang and others to build support for the legislation which took over 10 years to gain the bipartisan support for passage on Capitol Hill, Congress and the White House.

Vento died in 2000 while still a member of Congress from pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer, as a result of exposure to asbestos.