Lao and Hmong human scholar and advocate, Vang Pobzeb, of the Wisconsin and Minnesota-based Lao Human Rights Council, participated in a number of research missions with Philip Smith and The Centre for Public Policy Analysis, as well as Congressmen Bruce Vento and Steve Gunderson, to the Lao and Hmong refugee camps in Thailand and to Wat Tham Krabok during the 1980s and 1990s. US Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and others in the US Senate were active in raising concerns about egregious human rights violations in Laos and the plight of Lao and Hmong refugees and asylum seekers who fled Laos to refugee camps in Thailand and to Wat Tham Krabok.