Deportations make Khmer community in America weaker

Anonymous said...

Re: The Cambodian government making profit out of the suffering of its own people : Cambodian-American deportees

The Vietnamese government did the right thing to protect its own citizens by only accepting deportations of people immigrated to the U.S after 1995. The Cambodian government should do the same, but our officials were not smart and not well educated enough to comprehend the deportation agreement.

I agree that people who committed crimes must be punished, but the law should not be retroactive, meaning it should not deport those who had committed crimes before the law was enacted. It should only deport those who committed crimes after the law was introduced.

Now, about 2000 Cambodians are waiting to be deported and who knows how many more will be deported. At the end, many of them will be deported, separated from their children and wives for the crimes they have committed before the law was introduced. This is not fair. I don't mind if the U.S has the same agreement with every country, but the fact is that the agreement varies from country to country, and some country got a better treatment than others, like Vietnam only accept deportations of those who came to America after 1995 and this means that not many of them will be deported because most of them are businesspeople and students-well educated Vietnamese who are less likely to commit crimes.

The other thing is I know that Cambodia, especially the Cambodian officials, has benefited from deportations of Khmer-Americans a lot. I read somewhere that first Cambodia did not agree to the agreement but Americans officials coerced them, and coupled with a lot of financial payments, they agreed. So, I agree that the Cambodian government has made profit out of the suffering of its own people.
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Anonymous said...

It is nice to sit in front of your laptop to voice your philosophical opinion about a person's life. Have you met the deportees when they returned? What kind of job they are doing? How many have committed suicides? How many are working on the street to survive? By the way, the other flip side; Cambodian-Americans continues to get weaker as more Cambodians are being deported. Cambodian-American communities are only strong if there are more Cambodian-Americans in the United States. Look at the Vietnamese, they are close to a million population already, they owned shopping malls, businesses, they run for political offices in America. Guess what, they will influence American policy in favor of Vietnamese back home. How Cambodian-Americans do that if they are being deported? Cambodians are about to lose the land they are currently living in now. As you can see many Vietnamese business owners bought up Cambodian land, Khmer tourism industry run by Vietnamese business owners etc. I don't want to say the government is run by the Vietnamese, but I can say that the Cambodian government is influenced by the Vietnamese government. The issue with deportations is you don't just deport one person that committed a crime, but most likely the entire family will move back to Cambodia. How many Cambodians will remain in America to help influence American policy to help the future of Cambodia? America wins in this battle of deporting immigrants back to their birth country. Each deportee has a family, so we talking 3-5 people at minimum who are likely to move back to Cambodia. Imagine, after they deported all of these hardcore gangsters, you are talking about the people who had paid for their crime already. Who is next? It will be the lesser crime such as shoplifting, writing bad check etc. In 1996, these were added as felony. You can say, don't commit crime but you know full well, each and every Saturday or Sunday when Cambodians get together or go to wedding. I can guarantee you that they were drinking. Imagine, the police just sit in the corner waiting for them. How many more Cambodians are being deported to put light bulb in your head that you as the Cambodian government should revisit the agreement. Lobby the US government, that is all bullshit excuses to push the issue aside. If the Cambodian government stops issuing visa to deportees, how can they get deported in the first place?