Stories are legion about the heroism of the Hmong of Laos and the Montagnards of Vietnam as they fought alongside American soldiers and CIA agents in Indochina three decades ago. It turns out that America has been less faithful to them than they have been to us. In recent years, some members of these groups who took refuge in America have been caught up in a bureaucratic and legislative nightmare caused by changes in the law after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Many were denied permanent resident status, or green cards, because they fought against the Communist regimes in their homelands. Even more puzzling, family members of fighters were rejected on grounds that they gave “material support” to terrorism. “We brought them here and then we said, ‘We changed our minds. You’re a terrorist,'” Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid society told us yesterday.

In October, the Bush Administration eased the rules for some caught up in a Kafkaesque system over claims they aided the Hmong and Montagnard rebels. Now Congress is on the verge of fixing the problem for those who actually did the fighting. A government appropriations bill contains language that would make clear America does not consider the Hmong or the Montagnards to be terrorists. The bill goes a long way toward correcting the flaw in our immigration policy that precludes any one who had ever joined an armed movement in a foreign country from qualifying as a political refugee. Under the bill, fighters from certain Burmese, Cuban, and Tibetan groups will also be welcomed, and the administration will have discretion to expand the list.

While things seem to be headed in the right direction in Washington, a criminal case against Hmong leaders remains pending in California. Ten Hmong men, including Vang Pao, face the possibility of life in prison after being accused of soliciting guns, rocket launchers, and the like from an undercover federal agent. These are not men who relish fighting. Rather, they were driven by reports documenting the desperate condition of the Hmong people and the Laotian regime’s military campaign against them. On page one of the New York Times Monday, an important dispatch from the jungles of Laos, by Thomas Fuller, illuminated the plight of the Hmong.

No doubt there is a principle behind the 18th-century law barring unauthorized expeditions against foreign nations, but sometimes the law can be foolish, as in the decision to prosecute Vang Pao and his comrades, who fought valiently for America. Surely the case deserves a review by Attorney General Mukasey, while America’s foreign policy apparatus focuses on how to get the Hmong tribesmen still in the jungle some help.