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'I Am Begging Trump To Be Careful': Korean Refugee Concerned Over U.S.-North Korea Talks

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Trump Administration says it is cautiously optimistic that the president will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the next few weeks.

The date and place have yet to be announced.

Monday, President Donald Trump suggested the world leaders meet at the Peace House, along the border of North and South Korea.

That is where Kim met with South Korean President Moon Jae-In last week.

The U.S. is pushing for a full denuclearization of North Korea.

In exchange, Kim wants sanctions relief and a promise the U.S. won't invade North Korea.

A Minnesota woman is very concerned about the upcoming talks.

As a small child Hyon Kim was left in South Korea while her entire family went to the North.

They ended up trapped -- her father was executed, her mother and brother starved to death. She made it to Minnesota and has lived the American dream, but has never forgotten the nightmare back home.

"My mother was a Christian and if you are a Christian, oh my gosh, you are dead," Kim said.

After she was separated from her family at the age of 4, Hyon Kim only made it back to North Korea once, in 1990.

Her mother told her how she had hid her bible from the regime and how her father had been executed and buried in a mass grave.

"It was not even buried, it was just gobs of people they shoot and they just bury them," Kim said.

Two of her brothers are still alive in the North and she doesn't want her activism to put them in danger. She later learned her mother and one brother like many in the North starved to death.

"They are desperate, they are desperate," Kim said.

Hers is an immigrant success story

"I am so proud of our country," she said.

A successful businesswoman and a former U of M regent, she has formed a nonprofit to help North Korean refugees.

She just returned from South Korea, meeting with prominent community members focusing on the future -- a future that includes the thawing of Korean relations and a U.S.-North Korean summit. While she is encouraged that President Trump singled out a North Korean refugee in his State of the Union speech, she wants human rights to be the president's top priority.

"I am begging President Trump to be very careful, very careful," she said. "Kim Jong-un is not stupid."

Hyon Kim says she wants President Trump to pressure both North Korea and China on the issue of North Korean refugees. As many as 200,000 refugees have fled the North to China, where they live underground and if they are caught they are often sent back to North Korea where they are imprisoned and in many cases killed.

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