I thank God that my wife was arrested trying to escape from Vietnam via the Ca Mau peninsula in 1980.
Why?
Many of the "boat people" were attacked in the Sea Of Siam by Thai pirates, taken hostage, raped, robbed, beaten, murdered. Especially those who left from Ca Mau. And that's if the boat didn't disintegrate before reaching land or a friendly commercial vessel. Even if they made it out, they were typically kept in refugee camps for 3 to 5 years and more (Hong Kong repatriated several hundred back to Vietnam as recently as three years ago).
Americans generally cannot conceive of the horrors that Vietnamese refugees endured in order to get out of the "communist paradise."
As for my wife, she and her 100+ shipmates got 30 days in a filthy Ca Mau jail. Since she provided a fake name, there were no repercussions and obviously she left after we were married.
Bump!