In Sentenced Home, 1996 immigration law served as an agent for reducing the number of immigrants in United States: when a U.S. resident, either legal or illegal, is convicted to a crime, it doesn’t matter if the person served his/her sentence, he/she has to face the possible deportation. Deportation for these Cambodian Americans is a very harsh punishment by taking away one’s life completely with as little as a week forehand notice.

Most of the Cambodians are either refugee from the Cambodian Genocide from 1975~1979 or the descendants of the refugee. The society or the environment the immigrant kids were exposed to did not create a peaceful and studious atmosphere around these kids. Unfortunately, most of them have had little knowledge about the situation they were in and due to the environment they were exposed to, a large portion of them have criminal history.

I have to admit that I had teary eyes when I watched the video for the second time. In my point of view, deportation seems very unjust to me: for example, Many Uch has been checking in constantly with INS and haunted by the possible deportation for years because of his criminal history from his teenage hood; likewise, Leoun Lun, convicted a crime for about 8 years ago, even though he did his sentence, he was told to be deported back to Cambodia.
A better application for the immigration law needs to be fixed or rewritten because the deportation does not re-evaluate a person. The government just blindly pushes immigrants with criminal history away. The threat of deportation makes the possible deportees nervous and insecure. Imaging one day you are forced to leave your friends, your family, your work, and everything you have behind, you would feel the harshness these people are experiencing everyday.