The Golden Venture and Sentenced Home are two documentaries that tackle the issue of illegal immigration in the United States from the point of view of the immigrants.  They document the struggles of getting here to begin with, of building a life here once arrived, and then having that life ripped away with the threat of deportation.

The Golden Venture was a smuggle ship that brought 286 Chinese immigrants from Fujian Province, China, to New York.  However, the ship was met with difficulties, and the passengers ended up having to jump off board into the freezing water and swim to shore.  Ten people drowned, and the rest were rounded up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, after having paid $30,000 for this trip.  Half of them were sent back to China, and the other half spent up to four years imprisoned.  One of the deportees paid another $50,000 to be brought back to America.  One of them tried to come to the U.S three separate times (The Golden Venture being the second) and was deported all three times.  Upon being sent back to China, many of the exiles were beaten and forcibly sterilized.  The ones that haven’t been deported live in constant fear of it, knowing full well they could be forced to give up everything they’ve built here and leave the country.

Sentenced Home focused on three Cambodian immigrants living in Seattle.  They were admitted into the United States of America as Cambodian refugees, and not smuggled illegal immigrants.  However, they have all committed crimes and been convicted of them.  The INS holds strict laws regarding non-citizens and infringements on the law.  So, the convictions led to the INS either deporting them, or threatening to.  The film depicted this as the men being punished for crimes they had already paid for.  Of the two that were sent back to Cambodia, one of them—Lun- built some semblance of a life for himself, while the other—Kim Ho Ma—fell back into old habits of petty crimes.   Many Uch wasn’t deported, but is in danger of it every day.

Both of these movies paint a grim picture of what non-citizens go through living in the United States.  They are not afforded the basic rights that most Americans enjoy.  It was enlightening because it shed a lot of light on the nature of immigration laws, how strict they are, and what factors could be the difference between someone staying here of being deported.