Chuong Vo spent nearly three decades in law enforcement. Before that, he came to this country as a refugee from Vietnam. This week, he put both facts in writing and sent them to city hall — twice.

Vo sent formal letters to both the Westminster City Council and the Garden Grove City Council urging each city to adopt a policy prohibiting the Vietnamese Communist government and any affiliated entities from purchasing, leasing, or renting city-owned property. The letters went to every council member in both cities.

"For many in our community, the legacy of the communist regime is not abstract," Vo wrote. "It is personal. It represents political persecution, loss of freedom, and forced displacement."

Why both cities, why now

Westminster and Garden Grove together hold the largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans in the country. The pitch Vo is making is direct: public property in these cities should reflect the values of the people who built them, and those people did not come here to watch entities tied to the regime they fled gain a foothold on city land.

The push fits into a broader national conversation about foreign governments acquiring real estate near U.S. infrastructure. Several states have moved to restrict land purchases by entities linked to China, Russia, and other foreign governments. Vo's letters extend that logic to local city property in an area where the history behind the policy is not abstract at all.

"Westminster is home to one of the largest Vietnamese-American communities in the country," he wrote. "That community was built by individuals and families who fled that regime — not those who support it."

Westminster has already been through this once

In March, congressional candidate Tom Vo sent Westminster a letter urging nearly the same ordinance. Councilmember Amy Phan West moved to agendize it. Mayor Chi Charlie Nguyen declined, citing the risk of a lawsuit.

That argument struck some observers as unusual coming from a mayor who has spent public funds suing Phan West — but the item never made it onto the agenda. Chuong Vo's letter puts the question back in front of the same council.

The political context

Chuong Vo is running in the CA-45 Republican primary. So is Mayor Nguyen. So is Amy Phan West. So is Tom Vo.

Vo's decision to write to both Westminster and Garden Grove — and to do so under his own name, with his refugee background and law enforcement record front and center — puts him on record supporting a policy that his rival the mayor has already declined to act on. That is a contrast he is clearly willing to run on.

He received an endorsement from the California Republican Assembly in March after Nguyen drew criticism at a conservative candidate forum. The letters this week extend that momentum into concrete policy territory.

What happens next

Neither city has scheduled a council vote. In Westminster, the item would need to be agendized — something Mayor Nguyen blocked once already. In Garden Grove, it would need at least a council majority willing to take it up.

Whether either council acts may matter less in the short term than the fact that Vo asked them to. In a congressional primary where the Vietnamese-American vote is the central contest, putting your name on a letter like this — twice, to two cities — is a statement on its own.