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This comment area is closed to new submissions. Visit ITVS.org to continue the conversation about this film.
5/17/07
Colin
Oakland, California
If you grow up here, then you are a child of this nation. Rights of citizenship should
have been granted long ago. U.S. Government helped to create the vacuum that lead to
Pol-Pot -the terrible diaspora -the terrible journeys that the parents made to reach U.S.
shores should have granted them citizenship! Then felons -young men who make mistakes
-could do their time and start over -just like any other human being in this country.
Deportation is an indictment of the Amerikkkan soul. Peace to the deported brothers and
condolences to the broken-hearted mothers.
5/17/07
LA, CA
Can they seek residency in Canada or Mexico? How about being undocumented in Mexico?
Living near the border would allow people to see their kids. Not to be flippant, but
teaching english abroad is an option.
5/17/07
Levi
Portland, OR
I only watched 5 minutes of this program, and it turned my stomach. Any immigrant who is
convicted of a crime deserves to be thrown out of our country. If they wanted to be
Americans they should have obeyed our laws. NO EXCUSES!!!
5/17/07
Los Angeles, CA
After watching this moving video I couldn't help but wonder, if the various Native
American tribes wanted to deport millions of U.S. citizens, what sort of reaction would
that receive?
5/17/07
All of this is interesting. I can appreciate everyones support for immigration and
enforcing laws on those who deserve it, who hence might be the men in sentenced home. But
I ask you and please listen carefully. What about innocent people or people of reform? I
have a close relative that was personally effected by this. He was about 17-24 ossible
when he as most young men hung with the wrong crowd and got charges for drugs. Which by
the way was never so serious that he had to have any serious consequences. He never had to
serve time, he never harmed anyone,a matter of fact he had light probation , which he
completed. After that he never got into any problems ever again with the law. Here it is
he was a man with a family ,a common citizen, age 45. Ok. He travels several times back to
his country to visit family and assist in building homes for family because he is a mason
of construction. His fourth time traveling upon returning home he is automatically
detained for no reason and taken for holding to be deported. Please I need all of you to
explain the right and wrong in this. His mother still suffers from PTSD due to the shock
and unbelievable lack of justice. His children know older don't have a father to raise
them they way he thoroughly did. Please tell me the justice? Or maybe what to do?
Independent Lens if you see this please e-mail me we will be glad to tell our story!
Thank-you
Sincerely,
Confused??????????????
5/17/07
South Bend, IN
I think they are too strict. My brother is now serving time and soon to be deported to
Cambodia. I understand that he did wrong in his past. He has a wife here, and family here.
Families are being torn apart and no ones even looking at that. Crimes are committed
anywhere, anytime, by anyone, so why should we single out immigrants? There are murderers
being let out into the public everywhere. If anyone should be sent away it should be them.
5/17/07
Philinda Deiter McCracken
Saint Joseph, MO
I am weeping with regret. The teacher was right, Oh my God, he was right.I was a refugee
agency director in Washington state in the 1980s and we DID forget the children. We
concentrated on the parents. It was so hard to take them from the airports to a life of
their own here. So much to do so fast.When Indochinese refugee resettlement began,
refugees were given three years of financial help to resettle. It was cut over and over
until it was 8 months.
About two years after arrival, when the adults felt safe, they would break down. Adjusted
enough to be able to process their own experiences. I was called again and again by
employers saying things like the woman working there was curled up in a corner weeping for
her children that were disembowled in front of her. My own employee went into it one day
saying over and over, "but he couldnt even walk yet!" I brought in a Holocaust survivor
counselor, who answered my call saying, "I expected this call." But that was for the
adults, and even their children, bo
rn after Pol Pot time, must have suffered when their parents broke. How could I have
overlooked that some of the older children saw the same things? Most of the little
children were born in the camps, and there were few older ones because the Khmer Rouge
killed most of the children under the age of six. I remember seeing the children, playing
and laughing on the grass in the sun, and thinking, they are safe now.
When the teens began joining gangs, we were not so suprised because in the neighborhoods
where they lived, these were the teens that seemed to be on top. And it looked like
copying more than embracing. I thought it was a phase. Their parents were terribly
alarmed. They had not seen such behaviors in their country and they were unable to use the
type of correction and punishments used in their experience. I endorsed the custom of
forcing a child to do their two years in the temple as was their custom for all Buddhists
at some point in their lives, often as children. To me it was no different than sending a
child off to boarding school, but many of the children were being (relentlessly)
converted, and those churches fought it, also to the consternation of the family. Since it
involved leaving school, the school attendence laws got in the mix.
Some parents, more from Vietnam and Laos than from Cambodia, wanted to send their children
home, where they would have to shape up or be shaped up, but the teens just ran off to
someone somewhere that thought they were defending them by keeping them at their
home.
When refugees arrive, all they want is for it to be safe enough to go home. They know
citizenship will become available, after some years, but they will have to renounce their
own country. If they go back, they go back as Americans. Thats a pretty hard choice to
make. By the time their country is safe enough, there are few that still want to return.
But they are still reluctant to renounce their homeland.I admit and regret that we failed
the young children. Their parents held them so close, as close as they could, but when the
parents came to us for help for their teens, I failed them all.
5/17/07
Edward
Powhatan, Va
I think these cases should be evaluated on an idividual basis. I know thats probably
impossible at this time, with the laws as they are. These guys on the film had different
lives, situations, but ultimately came across as Americans in more ways than one. On their
offenses, I think they served their time. Its terrible to take a father away from their
children for the rest of their lives. To end it all thousands of miles away from family in
a country they don't know anything about. Thats a little extreme, even though it is better
than spending it in prison.
5/17/07
Sophon
SF, CA
I know boys like these, when i was growing up , they were mean. I do not feel sorry for
them. They comminted crimes. A lot us , do not commite crimes. When my parents tell me how
lucky we are to be here, and what it was like there in the war. I believe them. I am so
happy to be here. Those boys blame the U.S. The U.S. didn't make them commite crimes. It
is there own fault. But always blame someone else for what you do. NO I do not think the
law should be changed. It should be enforeced better. The immigration law too strict or
too weak, hard to say. My family is here, that is good. They say it was difficult at
times.
5/17/07
San Antonio, Texas
What an interesting documentary. I agree with the film makers in that their project should
provoke us to think about what it means to be an "American". My father came here to this
country, was naturalized and served in the U.S. Army as a career soldier serving in
various conflicts. Let's make an example and say that if he somehow got a DUI and got into
a wreck with a fatality involved, served his time and since then has been a productive
citizen of this country, he should be deported back to his country of origin? I agree that
laws should be enforced but we as democratic citizens should also realize that each case
has a right to be reviewed. We give that chance to our own criminals who commit the most
heinous crimes and yet we don't grant that to these individuals who are yet still
subjected to the laws of this country. That is a problem. We are thinking men and women
and we should have laws in action that reflect this.
5/17/07
Kevin
Little Neck, NY
It is sad to see this injustice done by the legal system. Enacting a law where minor
offensives can take a person who has grown up in the US and throw them out of the country
is a shame. Unfortunately the creation of a law and seeing things in only black and white
takes away from the fairness you would expect from our legal system. It is one of the many
laws on the books that sentence people to a greater punishment than fits the crime. I hope
the law is amended to allow these people the chance to appeal the proceeding to a judicial
review and / or to limit the time frame in which a resident who lives in this country has
fear of deportation for committing a minor crime.
5/17/07
We need more films like this.Everybody is a foreigner almost everywhere! What difference
does it make where you are from or where you are born? We all should have the right to
live and work where we want.We the US people should grow up and learn from Europe. No more
borders and the wall is gone! What worked there will work here too.And we need an
unconditional amnesty instead of all this politcal bickering, get it over with, so people
can become Americans on paper. Their souls are the souls of Americans. And why sending
work to India? Let the people come here, work here and spend their money here.
5/17/07
Krios
I think that deportation for immigrants should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Even
prisoners can be pardoned, so why can't immigrants who are productive members of American
society be given a similar opportunity? Especially in light of the fact that they have
served their time. I think it is ridiculous and shameful for our country to act this way
to people who may not be cititzens, but who know no other way of life? In most cases I
think it is absolutely unjust.
5/17/07
Mark
Chicago, IL
I find it hard to believe that there are people in this country of immigrants that can be
so hard hearted to the plight of modern day immigrants. While the deportees in question
have run afoul of the law, it is not the american way to be strict constructionists. We
don't do that for U.S. born residents, why be that way for foreign born? In all things, we
must have the ability to allow the circumstances to dictate the outcome. if not, we are
nothing but totalitarian barbarians.
5/17/07
Interesting viewing today: This morning (also on PBS) I saw part of a pgm. on
Japanese-Americans (& German-Americans) sent to internment camps during WWII, then evening
news report that congress might pass a bill that would basically give illegal immigrants
amnesty, and tonight a documentary about Cambodian "permanent residents" being deportsd.
It seems to me there's alot of disparity in our immegratioon laws... I'm very disheartened
by how far we HAVEN'T come...
5/17/07
Congress moved to the conservative stance in the 1994 election. This conservative bend
brought about the attitude of foreigners were not accepted or welcome; should they
mis-step they should be sent back, tax money was not to be spent on incarceration on these
outsiders that were minorities. This rigid, autocratic attitude was what these people
considered "The right thing to do". My family has been in this country for hundreds of
years, so I have no personal experience with deportation. I believe that a review process
should be in place, those who are considered repeat offenders, should be returned to their
home countries.
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