Following the end of the Vietnam War, in the late 1970s, Wat Tham Krabok hosted Hmong refugees in a camp on its grounds as result of their losing the Secret War. Most had fled Laos alleging that they were persecuted by the communist government that ruled Laos since 1975. Many thousands of the Laotian and Hmong refugees and asylum seekers at Wat Tham Krabok had also sought refuge at the temple after fleeing forced repatriation efforts at other refugee camps in Thailand, because they did not want to return to the Marxist government in Laos. More Lao and Hmong refugees continued to arrive and seek sanctuary at Wat Tham Krabok until over 15,000 Hmong were eventually allowed, after a long policy battle in both the United States and Thailand, to emigrate to the US in 2004 and 2005 as political refugees, instead of being forced back to Laos. Some moved to the United States as early as in 2001.