Protectors and Defenders Deported?

As many as 11,800 military families face deportation issues, group says
Military Times
By: Tara Copp
April 1, 2018

“It used to be veterans we’d see more frequently. We’re now seeing an uptick in active-duty people.” Nancy Kuznetsov

As many as 11,800 currently serving in the U.S. military are dealing with a spouse or family member who is facing deportation, a national immigration advocacy group announced Friday.

Esperanza Perez and her husband, Miguel Perez, parents of war veteran Miguel Perez Jr., stand with a handful of military veterans during a news conference Feb. 27 at the Lincoln Methodist Church in Chicago. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed March 26 that Miguel Perez had been deported to Mexico because of a 2008 drug-trafficking conviction.
(Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune via AP)

No previous estimate, official or unofficial, has been available on just how many of the 1 million married military members currently on active duty, National Guard or Reserve status may be dealing with the stress of having a spouse, dependent or parent deported.

It’s also not a number that can be easily checked, or verified, because neither DoD, the Department of Homeland Security nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tracks military status in immigration proceedings.

American Families United, a non-profit immigration advocacy group, calculated the estimate using 2011 U.S. Census statistics, which found that 6.3 percent of the 129 million married Americans are married to foreign-born spouses. The Pew Research Center found that one in four of those foreign-born spouses are in the country illegally. About 75 percent of that population comes from countries like Mexico, where if they entered illegally, they have a harder time obtaining legal status, as opposed to a person from Europe who might have overstayed a visa, said American Families United President Randall Emery.
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Citizenship Changes Bittersweet for Deported Vets

Citizenship Changes Bittersweet for Deported Vets

January 19, 2012
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Former Army Spc. Hector Barajas sat at his computer in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. He logged into Facebook. He uploaded a photo of servicemembers celebrating their new U.S. citizenship in the White House Rose Garden, where they’d been sworn in.

“Interesting acknowledgment of service, loyalty and commitment to the U.S. and the change in [immigration laws] since 2001,” Barajas wrote. “What about those that have been forgotten or banished? Why do they not count?”

As pleased as he was to see the government pulling out all the stops to help foreign-born servicemembers become citizens, Barajas couldn’t help but feel down. The Mexican-born, U.S.-raised vet is among the thousands of so-called “banished veterans,” booted from the U.S. because of a law he and many others didn’t know existed until it was too late.

The 1996 law strips legal residents of their green cards and orders they be deported if they’re convicted of any number of crimes – from serious, violent felonies to possession of small amounts of marijuana – making no allowance to how long they’ve been in the U.S. or whether they’ve served in the military.
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'Dream Come True.' Florida soldier becomes US citizen, HS graduate

'Dream Come True.' Florida soldier becomes US citizen, HS graduate

Story by Capt. Kyle Key

OCALA, Fla. -- Coming to America was easy, but the journey to stay here was paved with struggle for Pvt. Angel E. Chavez and his family.

Pvt. Chavez grew up in Panama in the city of La Chorrera and dreamed of coming to the United States some day.

“I would tell my friends in elementary school,” said Chavez. “They used to laugh at me. I would tell them, I am going there one day and I’m going to make it.”

In 2005, Chavez arrived in the United States with his parents and three siblings. They settled in Ocala, Fla., where his father started a business repairing and exporting vehicles to Panama and his mother found a job as a cosmetologist. He and his siblings were doing well in school and were adjusting to their new lives when a big problem arose: their visas expired and their entire family was subject to deportation.

The Chavez family tried every legal avenue to stay in the country. The dishonor of being illegal immigrants wore on the children. By 2008, his mother divorced and remarried a U.S. citizen and shocked the family by disappearing for two years with her new husband.
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Senator Nelson takes on fight for Iraq Vet facing deportation

Jacksonville Iraq War Veteran Faces Deportation
11:33 PM, Jun 29, 2011

Written by
Lewis Turner

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Just last year Elisha Dawkins was getting pinned, having just graduated from the FSCJ school of nursing. His plan was to take the boards after he returned from his deployment to Guantanamo Bay.

That plan changed, though, when he was arrested upon his return in April. Immigration officials said there was a problem with Dawkins' passport paperwork. They said he checked the box stating he never applied for a passport before, when in fact he had.

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Jacksonville Iraq War Veteran Faces Deportation

From the New York Times

Iraq Veteran Offered Deal in Passport Violation Case
By SUSANNAH NESMITH
Published: June 28, 2011

MIAMI — The federal government on Tuesday took the unusual step of offering to drop a passport violation prosecution of a Navy petty officer if he completed a term of probation.

Even if he is able to resolve the criminal case, the petty officer, Elisha L. Dawkins, 26, is facing deportation based on an order issued in 1992, when he was 8 years old, his lawyer said.

Petty Officer Dawkins was brought to the United States from the Bahamas as a baby and was raised in Miami believing he was a United States citizen, said his lawyer, Clark Mervis.

In March, while he was on active duty at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Petty Officer Dawkins was indicted on a charge of making a false statement on a 2006 passport application. The statement, according to prosecutors, was that he had never applied for a passport before, when he had actually abandoned an application he filled out the year before.

Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of Federal District Court noted the unusual nature of the prosecutors’ offer, saying she had seen the government use the pretrial diversion program only twice before in her eight years on the bench.

“I’m almost speechless,” the judge said. “It’s a kinder, gentler day over there. It happens so infrequently.”
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Iraq Veteran Offered Deal in Passport Violation Case

also
Iraq Veteran locked up for not being a citizen

Iraq Veteran locked up for "not being a citizen"

Veteran of Iraq War Now Fights His Own Deportation
By SUSANNAH NESMITH
Published: June 23, 2011

“We don’t often incarcerate war-hero-type people for making a false statement on a passport application,” Mr. Mervis said. “It’s a case that should never have been prosecuted criminally. This is just wrong.”

MIAMI — A veteran of both the Army and the Navy who served with distinction in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay has spent the last month in federal lockup here because the government wants to deport him.

Not only did he lie on a passport application, prosecutors say, but he was never even a citizen.

But a lawyer for the man, Elisha L. Dawkins, 26, has a different story, one that begins with Mr. Dawkins’s arrival here from the Bahamas as an infant. He was raised to believe he was a citizen, his lawyer contends, something the state and federal authorities did not challenge during his seven years in the military.

It is unclear why Mr. Dawkins was indicted in March, five years after receiving his passport and when he was still in the Navy.

“The military believes he’s an American citizen,” the lawyer, Clark Mervis, told Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of Federal District Court here last week, noting that Mr. Dawkins had “secret” security clearance when he served in Guantánamo.
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Veteran of Iraq War Now Fights His Own Deportation

Wounded and struggling Iraq vet may lose his wife

Her crime was not her's. Her parents brought her here illegally when she was only six. How would this be justice for this combat wounded veteran to lose his wife for something she did not do? Now consider that what she is doing for this veteran is making his life with his wounds easier should be worth at least giving her citizenship for his sake alone, then add in their two children.

Struggling Iraq vet may lose his anchor
His wife, brought here illegally at age 6, is about to be deported. 'She's my everything,' her husband says.

By Teresa Watanabe

October 26, 2009


The nightmares still plague him. The terrifying mortar attacks. The loss of an Albanian soldier and ally, mutilated by shrapnel. The Iraqi children, bloodied and battered, lined up for medical care at the U.S. base at Mosul.

Two years after returning from his service in Iraq, U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios, 26, is fighting sleeplessness, sudden angry outbursts, aversion to emotional intimacy and other fallout from his post-traumatic stress disorder.

But as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces deportation.

His wife, 23-year-old Frances, was illegally brought to the United States by her mother at age 6, learned of her status in high school and discovered just last year that removal proceedings have been started. Her possible deportation has left Barrios in panic as he contemplates life without her.

The Army reservist says his wife is the family's anchor, caring for their year-old daughter and 3-year-old son and helping him battle his post-traumatic stress.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig-soldier26-2009oct26,0,144983.story

Bad economy sends illegal immigrants back to Mexico

With jobs scarce, sales of one-way tickets to Mexico are up
By Saundra Amrhein, Times Staff Writer
In print: Sunday, August 31, 2008


PLANT CITY — On a Wednesday afternoon, in the gravel lot of El Expreso bus depot, Benito Ramos waits with his life packed in several plastic tubs.

After eight years in the United States, he is going home to Hidalgo, Mexico, to his mother and a small concrete block house built with the money earned clearing tables in Tampa restaurants.

"You can't survive like before," said Ramos, 28, standing in front of the clapboard depot building with its low-slung porch filled with passengers and suitcases.

When times were good, Ramos worked 16 hours a day at two restaurants, five days a week. His weekly check was $520. But for months, bosses have slashed his schedule. He was lucky to work six hours a day for two or three days, bringing in just $117 a week.

"It got to the point where you can't pay rent, you can't pay the bills," he said.

A few weeks ago, Ramos bought a bus ticket and joined legions — perhaps thousands — of illegal immigrants going back home.
go here for more
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article791045.ece