The makings of our modern resettlement system can be traced back to the fallout of the Vietnam War, a cascade of international crises stoked by the U.S. Starting in the mid-1970s, hundreds of thousands of “Indochinese” refugees poured out of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, escaping newly installed brutal communist governments, ethnic repression, retribution against American allies, starvation, war crimes, and genocide.