Team
Chanthon Bun
Community Advocate, Immigrant Rights
Chanthon Bun
Community Advocate, Immigrant Rights
As a 1.5 generation immigrant from Cambodia with lots of traumas and fears, acculturating to this society was hard. At the age of 18, I was a father of two and convicted of a robbery with no one physically harmed and sentenced to 49 years.
While incarcerated, I learned and understood my history. After 23 years I won my freedom through the parole board and now I'm honored to join ALC as the Kuri Kuchiyama Fellow, and now as a community advocate.
Our Focus
Immigrant and refugee community members should not be targeted and punished simply because they were born in another country. We advocate for policies that disentangle local and state law enforcement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We also push for reforms that diminish the power of the prison-industrial complex, demanding investments in marginalized communities rather than police and the carceral system, challenging police misconduct, and promoting restorative justice as an alternative to punitive approaches in the criminal legal system.
- We advocate for legislation that ends California's collaboration with ICE and stops double punishment of immigrant communities.
- We ensure county compliance with the CA Values Act (SB 54) - California’s sanctuary policy that we helped draft and pass.
- We bring community partners together to mobilize for policy change and help immigrant families stay together.
- We advocate for clemency for immigrant community members facing deportation due to prior convictions.
