Vietnamese Refugees in Florida, 1975

Florida received Vietnamese refugees in 1975 because Eglin Air Force Base was picked as one of the federal reception centers for people evacuated after the fall of Saigon.

The base history office at Eglin records that on April 28, 1975, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff selected Eglin among four refugee centers, and that the base commander's staff worked into the night to plan a camp that might reach 20,000 people (Eglin Air Force Base history office). The same day the Armament Development and Test Center chose Auxiliary Field 2, also called Pierce Field, on State Road 285 as the site.

The refugees included relatives of Americans and people the government placed in a high risk category. A task force background paper prepared for the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, dated May 19, 1975 and now held at the Ford Presidential Library, says the evacuees included dependents of American citizens and permanent residents and people who might qualify for parole under a high risk category (Ford Library, Advisory Committee background papers). That paper planned that every refugee bound for resettlement in the United States would pass through one of three reception centers, Eglin in Florida among them, for food, shelter, orientation to American life and sponsorship matching, with voluntary agencies such as the U.S. Catholic Conference handling much of the placement work.

The camp sat on Auxiliary Field 2, ground the 823d RED HORSE Squadron from Hurlburt Field had used for training during the war (Eglin history).

Eglin built a tent city within days, received its first 373 refugees on May 4, 1975, and closed the camp in September after processing more than 10,000 people.

More than 1,200 personnel, the RED HORSE squadron among them, readied the site, and over 130 flights brought in materials and supplies, some landing directly at Pierce Field (Eglin history office). Families were housed together, each tent had a refugee leader, groups of tents formed villages with their own leaders, and every village had a liaison team of two officers and three noncommissioned officers. Hurlburt Field's Special Operations School, which had trained troops in Vietnamese culture, helped the liaisons, and a refugee produced a bilingual camp newsletter called The New Land.

The base history says the wind down was timed for the Emerald Coast hurricane season, and that Hurricane Eloise struck after the camp closed, leaving the tent city's 2x4s resembling toothpicks (Eglin history). The account by the 96th Test Wing historian, published November 17, 2023, also counts 28 babies born in the camp.

More than 10,000 Vietnamese were processed and relocated through the Eglin camp in four months, according to the base's own history; official national totals for the 1975 evacuation range from about 130,000 to about 133,000.

The Eglin figure of over 10,000 comes from the Air Force Materiel Command history office account (Eglin history). Some of those refugees settled near the base and others went to sponsor families elsewhere in the country.

National counts differ by source and by date. On May 17, 1975, the advisory committee background paper counted just under 130,000 Vietnamese under American protection, with over 60,000 at staging areas on Guam and Wake or in the Philippines, 3,765 at sea, and 17,000 being processed through reception centers at Travis and Eglin Air Force Bases or at Camp Pendleton and Fort Chaffee (Ford Library background papers). USCIS gives approximately 130,000 Southeast Asian refugees paroled into the country in the months right after the fall of Saigon (USCIS refugee timeline), while a National Park Service Asian American history booklet gives approximately 133,000 entering through the program (National Park Service).

The sources also disagree on the number of mainland centers. The May 19 background paper names three: Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas and Eglin in Florida (Ford Library). The Park Service booklet lists four, adding Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, and the Eglin history speaks of four centers as of April 28 (NPS; Eglin). Every version of the list includes Eglin.

The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975, Public Law 94-23, authorized money for refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam and was approved on May 23, 1975, after the Eglin camp had already opened.

The statute as printed at 89 Stat. 87 extended refugee assistance to people who fled Cambodia or Vietnam out of fear of persecution, cannot return, and urgently need help with the essentials of life, and it barred obligation of its funds after September 30, 1977 (Public Law 94-23, govinfo). It also required the President to report to the House and Senate committees within thirty days on the status of the refugees, including a plan for resettling those still in receiving or staging centers (Public Law 94-23). The Eglin camp was then in operation: its first refugees arrived on May 4 and its last left on September 15, 1975 (Eglin history).

Official sources state the dollar amount differently. The enrolled bill memo in the Ford Library says H.R. 6755 authorized appropriations of not to exceed $455 million, $52 million less than the administration's estimate of $507 million and $50 million above the $405 million in a separate enrolled appropriations bill then before the President (Ford Library enrolled bill file). The House history office describes the act itself as setting aside $405 million for a two-year program (House History, Art and Archives). The two official sources attach the $405 million figure to different bills. The House essay adds that Congress quickly amended the law so refugees from Laos could also be helped. Neither document breaks the money down by reception center, so no Eglin share can be stated from them.

The 1975 arrivals, including the families who passed through Eglin, entered on the attorney general's parole authority, a 1977 law let them become permanent residents, and the Refugee Act of 1980 set a uniform refugee policy.

USCIS writes that INS officers inspected the refugees at special reception centers where they were held until resettlement (the May 19, 1975 task force paper names Eglin as one of them), that about 300,000 Southeast Asians entered on the attorney general's parole authority between 1975 and 1980, and that a 1977 law let those parolees become lawful permanent residents (USCIS refugee timeline). INS created an Office of Refugee and Parole the same year.

The Refugee Act of 1980 adopted the United Nations definition of a refugee and gave asylum its first statutory basis, passed while refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia were still arriving (USCIS). The House history office notes that when the 96th Congress convened in 1979, the United States agreed to accept another 15,000 Indochinese refugees over the next year, while the flow into camps in Thailand and Hong Kong far outpaced resettlement (House History). By then the Eglin camp had long been closed; its last refugees left on September 15, 1975 (Eglin history).

Florida had 91,688 residents who reported Vietnamese as their only race in the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, and Orange and Pinellas counties hold the largest numbers.

The statewide estimate carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3,689 and amounts to 0.4 percent of Florida's 22,416,077 residents in the same survey (Census ACS 2020-2024 DP05, Florida). County estimates from the same table, ACS 2020-2024 5-year:

All rows come from the Census ACS 2020-2024 DP05 county file. The Eglin history describes the camp as a processing stop, with some families resettled locally and others placed with sponsors elsewhere (Eglin history). The Census figures count people by race today and do not say who arrived in 1975 or how. The Mariel boatlift guide covers the Cubans who arrived from April to October 1980 (USCIS).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Eglin base history of Operation NEW ARRIVAL, two Ford Library files, the Public Law 94-23 scan on govinfo, the House and USCIS refugee histories, a National Park Service booklet, and the ACS 2020-2024 DP05 state and county tables.