In April of 1975, the U.S.-backed government in Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese, and Vietnamese people who had been closely associated with the U.S. war effort surged into Saigon. Hundreds of thousands were airlifted to American ships in the South China Sea and taken to Guam for safety. Those who had not managed to escape with U.S. assistance were leaving Vietnam by boat, risking the possibility of death at sea. For the first time in United States history, half a million people were given legal status as refugees, without local, family, or agency sponsors. A new era of refugee resettlement had begun, with over a thousand refugees arriving in San Francisco every month. In 1976, the International Institute convened an Advisory Committee to develop a service center for Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao refugees.