From a Vietnam jail cell to Trump’s state-of-the-union address: one wife’s bid to get her husband’s story heard

Michael Phuong Minh Nguyen, from California, was imprisoned in Vietnam in July for ‘actions’ to overthrow the government

The spotlight of the state-of-the-union address allows his wife Helen Nguyen to again call attention to her husband’s plight, lobbying for urgent help in hopes of his release

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Helen Nguyen, wife of Michael Nguyen of Orange, who has been imprisoned without charges by the Vietnamese government since last July. Photo: Tribune News Service

Published: 12:11pm, 4 Feb 2019Updated: 5:44am, 5 Feb 2019

She hardly sleeps and when she does, her children often lie near her, fearing someone “could take them away – or take me away”.

Helen Nguyen is the wife of Michael Phuong Minh Nguyen, an Orange County resident who has been imprisoned in Vietnam since July. He was arrested while touring the country and is under investigation for “actions” to overthrow the government.

But Helen Nguyen said her husband is an “ordinary man,” the main caretaker of their four daughters who cooks for them daily and drives them everywhere. She has tried to ease her children’s fear, she said, while longing for a way to show them and the world that their father is not forgotten.

She will get her chance on Tuesday when she attends President Donald Trump’s state-of-the-union speech in Washington as a guest of Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat newly elected to California’s 45th Congressional District. And the timing could not be better.

The spotlight allows Helen Nguyen, 47, to once again call attention to her husband’s plight, lobbying for urgent help in hopes of his release.

Porter, whose three children are close in age to Nguyen’s daughters, said the image of the two women as allies will send a strong message to Hanoi’s communist regime:

“We expect that American citizens are treated with respect abroad,” she said. “There are no formal charges against Michael and we demand his safe return.”