Customer Reviews

Sentenced Home

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4 star:		(1)
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This is an excellent documentary, specifically exploring the effects of the US governemnt's policy of deporting Cambodian Permanent Residents if they have had a criminal conviction- although this conviction may have been incurred years before and the offendor served their time, they are still at risk of being deported permanently back to Cambodia, regardless of family ties or other considerations. The programme explores the stories of three Cambodian Americans who have comitted various crimes in their past, crimes usually associated with gang warfare, a consequence of their adolescence and fragmentation from traditional Cambodian culture ( although gang membership amongst young males in contemporary Cambodia is also big). The respective stories are fascinating, as two of the three are deported and have to make permanent lives in Cambodia. The programme's strongest impact though is felt when the mothers of these boys appear in it. These women had survived the KHmer Rouge, walked to Thailand carrying dying children, struggled in refugee camps and had been culturally isolated in the US watching their children grow up in to the world of violence and crime. They now have to live on in the US without the support of their sons and with the knowledge that their sons can never return to the country which they fought so hard to get them to. It's a fascinating, little explored social problem which is well documented here.

SENTENCED HOME was released a few years ago, but it has not lost its relevance. The issue of American deportation policy still remains controversial and unsettled, and this documentary sheds an important light on the people that are so affected by these policies. The film follows three young Cambodian American men, refugees of the Khmer Rouge, as they face deportation for minor crimes committed years before. They are forced to leave behind their friends and family for a foreign country they have not seen in many years. They must begin a new life with no means of support. They struggle and they adjust, but they have been forced from the land they call home. This documentary offers much insight into the affects of our actions and policies, and perhaps watching this could make people reconsider splitting apart families and taking away homes. This is truly a powerful work of filmmaking.

Obviously this film was made to make people feel sympathy for the subjects. It was interesting to watch, but I don't feel any pity for these men. They were rescued by the US, given a once-in-a-lifetime shot at a great life, and they all just pissed it away. They admit that they never bothered becoming citizens. It just wasn't important to them. They break our laws, and then they are outraged when they are booted. If only we can exile all our criminals! One of them was especially obnoxious: Kim Ho Ma, a shiftless, wannabe gangsta. After being deported, he was lucky enough to land in a halfway house that gave him free room and board. All he did there was smoke, listen to rap, and play cards. How about helping out the old man mopping the floor at the very least? I could only roll my eyes as he preened and complained that he didn't fit in because he was raised in America. At the very end, all he had to say was F this and F that and F America. Good riddance.

"Sentenced Home" tells the story of three Cambodian refugees who were brought here in the 1980's as part of our government's attempt to defuse what happened to ordinary people in Cambodia when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge created the great cleansing of the country. Brought into a foreign culture, given no significant assistance in making the transition, dumped in a world totally incomprehensible, left to rot in public housing and inferior schools in Seattle, the three men who are the subjects of the film show the cruelty and indifference of the INS and subsequently the DHS (the parent governmental agency now responsible for immigration and border patrol and customs since 9/11). Granted, in the course of growing from children at age 8 to young men in their 20's, these three men all had run-ins with the law as a result of gang connections, nevertheless, they did their time, stayed clean afterwards, and tried to create decent lives with their families. But between the "I cannot do anything but follow the law" attitude of the Federal Prosecutors (as if there were no prosecutorial discretion) and the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Public Defender (let's get a Starbucks and do you like my pony tail?), these three men are sentenced for removal (what used to be called deportation). The film follows two of the men back to Cambodia, where one is building a house for himself and for his wife and children when they visit him and the other is just bitter about being tossed out of the country that supposedly was a refuge. Had these men been given adequate legal advice early enough during their stay here, they would have been citizens by the time they were convicted and thus, would not have been "removed." After all, we do not deport American citizens, even those who are foreign born, when they have committed a crime. The film-makers are most sympathetic to the one man remaining in Seattle who is awaiting his orders to report for removal. His case is so unique that we wonder why an exception cannot be made for him. The film leaves us without an answer. While there are cinema verite qualities to this documentary, "Sentenced Home" is not a Frederic Wiseman documentary. And that is too bad---for it needed the sense of moral outrage regarding how we treat people who never asked to come here and who are now banned from ever returning, even though they have families that are American citizens. The movie is too soft on immigration law, too soft on the post-9/11 amendments to INA, too soft on the U.S.Attorneys, too soft on the Public Defenders. A film such as this one needs to take a stand, a firm, strong stand---and it needs that sense of moral outrage that the great documentaries have. Imagine "Night and Fog" (Alain Resnais' great film about Nazi concentration camps) without the overt irony, without the overt sense of moral outrage, without the overt disgust. Somebody needs to shake up the film-makers and get them to rage against the injustices here. "Sentenced Home" is a sad commentary on our nation and its immigration policy----but it is a sadder commentary on the virtual moral cowardice of the film-makers who made it.

I have lived in gang infested areas in America and I have traveled to Cambodia while living in Asia. These men will be fine in Cambodia as long as they don't bring that disgusting American gang mentally to Cambodia. People of Cambodia live a simple, yet beautiful life and the culture is rich. These young men would be wise to try to understand this and stop acting as if it impossible to adapt. People do it all the time having grown up in America. As for the deportation process, the law is to keep people who are given a once in a lifetime opportunity to come to America from becoming menaces to society. We can't bend the laws every time we feel sorry for someone. Millions of immigrants (legal and illegal) have similar sob stories. Should we let all of them stay after hearing their sob stories after they break the laws?

The movie wonderfully documents an excellent alternative to incarceration for young men who opt for alternative approaches to civilization.

I hope the boys assimilate over the years and enjoy their new opportunities in the old country!