Wicked and Monk B are just 2 of 196 all-American kids who now call Cambodia home. Like all of the others, they're the children of Cambodian refugees sent here after President Bush began deporting convicted criminals in 2002. Most of them had only committed minor crimes.
‘WICKED’, DEPORTEE: Once you have committed a crime, you are done. So you are on the list for deportation and a lot of guys released from prison and have started to, you know, go on with their lives - get married and have children, and you know, work or go to college and things like that. As for myself, I got out and went to college, worked full-time, and started doing really good. So, I was out about almost two years when one day I got a phone call while I was getting ready for work. The immigration officer had asked me to come in to fill out...
He says they tricked him, saying they had lost some paperwork and needed him to come in and fill it out again. He told his mother he wouldn't be long.
‘WICKED’: Before I left Mom's house, she was just like, "Do you want to eat first?" And I'm like "No, I'll be back in half an hour." So, when I went to check in I never came back - and that was that. Found myself in Cambodia.
29-year-old Monk B is from Virginia. Like the others, he was a permanent resident of the US, but hadn't become a citizen. He'd served his jail sentence, but was then kept in immigration detention for two years.
‘MONK B’, DEPORTEE: One day in May 2003, they came in and said "Pack your bags". I said "Where am I going?" "Home".
REPORTER: So when they said "Home" they meant Cambodia, not home?
‘MONK B’: Yeah, I found that out when I got out.
The Cambodian Government had reluctantly agreed to accept the convicted criminals - under diplomatic pressure from Washington. So now, this is Monk B's new home. He is now trying to focus on a normal life with his new Cambodian wife and 2-year-old daughter.
‘MONK B’: No more egg and bacon. No more waffle or nothing - once in a while. Yeah, baby, I got you.
Monk B has struggled to adapt to his new life. On arrival he ran off the rails and ended up doing another stint in jail. His wife Chamnan knows about his past and says it doesn't bother her.
CHAMNAN (Translation): He’s okay, he is a good man – he knows how to love his wife. If there’s something on, he takes me and the kid along. He doesn’t let anybody harm his loved ones.
But many in Cambodia are not so forgiving. His old neighbours didn't like the new American next door and Monk B had to move out. His parents sent him the money to buy this small house.
‘MONK B’: It's not all good, but it's good for me 'cause I got a roof, you know what I mean? A rest room.
REPORTER: Even thought the roof leaks at least it's a roof.
‘MONK B’: Yeah, the roof leaks. It leaks over here. Look, all that stuff - that's from the leaks. Can't open this window 'cause you smell the cow shit and shit. That's my father when he was in the army or military, or whatever...
On his walls are photos of the life he can never return to.
‘MONK B’: My father loves me. I'm the first born y'know. I was supposed to take his place but now my second brother took the place. 'Cause I was always gone. I ain't want to listen to them. That's him, right here, when we was living in a complex, and stuff, when he bought his first car - a Volkswagen Jetta.
REPORTER: And who's the monk?
‘MONK B’: That's me!
When Monk B started getting into trouble again in Cambodia his parents convinced him to became a monk.
REPORTER: You managed to cover your tattoo?
‘MONK B’: That's just the whole uniform - the outfit of the monk. Normally I just walk with a little... in the daylight and everyone say "Look, there the gangsta monk coming." And they're like, "Yo, don't walk like that". I'm like, man, this is my walk! Come on, man, I can't stop walking the way I walk.
It was a struggle, but he managed to last a year in the monastery, and came out with his new name - and a new approach to life.
‘MONK B’: I'm living life. It's like I don't have to do nothing big and spectacular. I am just living a normal life, day by day, getting older and older. Someday I am going to have grey hair just like you. Know what I mean?
While Monk B is now coping well in Cambodia, many of the deportees are not. This is a support centre for them - known as the Returnee Integration Support Program, or RISP. It was started by an American pastor trying to help the new arrivals survive their first two years here. Tan Sonec is the director and a deportee himself.
TAN SONEC, RETURNEE INTERGRATION SUPPORT PROGRAM: We provide housing. We provide medical support. We have couple of severe psychological cases now, who are not able to live independently and must be under supervision. Without the program they would be out there - they would be in prison, or they would be dead.
You be cool alright. No graffiti. No nothin'.
Smokey is one of those who needs to live here at the RISP refuge.
SMOKEY, DEPORTEE: I was taking the wrong medication and it give me a fuck up in the head and it just like problem all time - mental problem.
Spooky is also sleeping here at RISP.
SPOOKY, DEPORTEE: They only let you stay like a few or couple months and that's it then you've got to move on. They try to help you get a job. If you stay here, they try to help you out to get a job. Make you a CV.
REPORTER: So, without them, you'd be pretty stuck?
SPOOKY: Pretty much... I'd be out on the street.
‘WICKED’: That's the hard part, right now. A lot of people can't really support themselves financially. That's the hard thing, it's the financial thing. This guy... this guy.. what are you trying to say? Just trying to make something to eat, day by day.
The RISP program receives funding from only a few sources, one of which is America's USAID, but the US Government has decided to stop funding the program from the end of this month. Their director, Sonec, is wondering how they will be able to carry on without that money.
TAN SONEC: The organisation is in a limbo situation at the moment. We are a little concerned about our funding situation to be able to keep this going beyond next year.
The timing couldn't be worse, because thousands more are set to be deported here.
HOLLY BRADFORD, KORSANG FOUNDER: Deportation? I think it is sickening.
Holly Bradford has worked with the deportees for six years.
HOLLY BRADFORD: They need to look at it on an individual case-by-case basis. They shouldn't be deporting guys that are mentally ill because it's a death sentence for them, and you know, we bury them.
Bradford founded Korsang, a needle exchange and harm reduction program for drug addicts in Phnom Penh. This is virtually the only place that deportees can get a job. In the five years it has been running, more than 50 of them have worked here.
HOLLY BRADFORD: Actually, I came here to start the program for them. The whole reason I came was to start a harm reduction program in Cambodia with them in mind, and hiring them, so they would have something for the future that they could work and be trained. They couldn't find jobs. When I brought that to them, and explained what they meant - harm reduction - they got it right away. When you are from the street, and you work in harm reduction, you get to kind of still stay close to the street so you are not missing it. You know what I mean? And I think that works for them too.
The deportees' job is to make sure local addicts are given medical treatment and two cooked meals a day. But that's not enough to keep some of them alive. This heroin addict's body is shutting down.
REPORTER: What's wrong with him?
HOLLY BRADFORD: A few things. Viruses, various viruses. Hepatitis, and he is anaemic so he has got no blood in him. He is really sick.
On arrival at hospital he was diagnosed with leukaemia as well, and he died last week.
JET, HIV EDUCATOR: It's been kind of a busy day today. There's more smokers and there's a little less IDU. But it's basically almost normal.
REPORTER: When you say smokers, do you mean ice?
JET: Smokin' ice, methamphetamine and amphetamine.
Jet, who was deported from Massachusetts, volunteered here for three months before getting a paid job as an HIV educator.
JET: There is quite a bit of HIV and AIDS going around and hepatitis in Cambodia. It's a big problem now because people using the same needles. That's why we give out needles we give out condoms... slow down the spread of HIV.
Jet fought deportation for four years, and failed. Now, his two children are growing up without him in the United States, while he battles a mental illness alone.
JET: I was on medication and when I got here there was no medicine for me so I kind of went a little crazy for a while. I did things I didn't realise. I have been through good and bad, but mostly bad experiences in Cambodia.
While Jet works the day shift, Monk B works the night.
‘MONK B’: He got stabbed in the eye. The meat just hanging out. They cut it out and put a patch on him. I tell them I used to be a criminal too. I used to rob, I used to steal, I used to do all that - sell drugs woo, woo, woo, so that's why I can work here. That's what I tell them, I understand you. That's why you all like me.
HOLLY BRADFORD: Monk B? He's great. He's been working here for five years. When he first got here, like all of us, we were wild. All of us, me included, you know. Once you are here for a while you figure out if you keep being wild you are going to die here. So, there comes a time you need to calm down, get serious and start working so, he has done that. He has transformed and evolved quite a bit.
For now, the deportees are trying to make the most of their lives in Cambodia. Wicked lives at his American girlfriend's house, but has no hope of ever returning to the US.
‘WICKED’: It's hard because some people have kids in the States and they won't ever see their kids again. Especially like my daughters - they are half-American so what happens when I want them to go off to college, to Harvard or something. You know, to high school or visit their grandparents in the States? I can't take them. They would have to go alone or with their mom.
The president who sent them here is now gone but with thousands more on the way, Wicked hopes that his successor will stop the deportations.
‘WICKED’: Obama, act quick, man! Act quick, man. Because there are a lot of lives that you can save, and there's a lot of lives that are depending on you.
Reporter/Camera
DAVID O’SHEA
Editor
DAVID POTTS
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Translations / Subtitling
SABOUPHARY TUY
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN