WASHINGTON (AP) — After serving in the US Marines in Iraq, Julio Torres tattooed an American flag and a Marine insignia on his arm, showing pride in serving the country he calls home.
And after struggling with post-traumatic stress syndrome, drug addiction and related criminal charges after development, the 44-year-old found a new purpose for the pastor to preach a message of freedom to those facing similar problems.
But these days, his community in eastern Texas feels more like a prison than a land of freedom.
As a president Donald Trump Born in Mexico and legally emigrated to the US at the age of five, Torres works to carry out a massive deportation agenda, but fears adventures far from home. Despite maintaining a green card residence permit and a record of service to the US military, Torres was detained by the Immigration Bureau last year under the Biden administration. He fears Trump is afraid of aggressively increasing US customs and immigration enforcement attacks.
“I want to leave this country? No. I want to serve it. I want to continue serving my community,” Torres told The Associated Press. “Fighting for this country to raise children in this country is heartbreaking.
Torres is not alone. Recent estimates show that there are over 100,000 military veterans living in the United States who do not have citizenship. Parliamentary Research Services. Although military recruiters frequently describe the service as a quick pursuit of citizenship for soldiers and their families, Trump administration’s immigration agenda They put them at a new risk of deportation.
Congressional Democrats I started raising the alarm recently military veteran space Some have been kicked out of the country or have been detained by their families on ice. The bipartisan bill, introduced Wednesday by California Democrat Mark Takano, aims to address it by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to identify whether immigrants are U.S. military veterans and provide the opportunity to apply for legal immigrant status.
The law, also supported by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican lawmaker from Florida and Amata Coleman Ladewagen, a representative of American Samoa, also extends deadlines and makes it easier for service members to apply for citizenship.
“It is very important for Americans to understand the contributions of non-citizens to our national security,” Takano told the Associated Press. “They are often pose as threats to our personal security, and this is a story about how important they play. The vast numbers of our current military are non-citizens.”
From veteran honor to the threat of deportation
Torres remembers his anger when he was taken to a Texas immigration detention center last year after being stopped by a customs and border agent at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He was about to re-enter the country after a trip to visit a relative in Mexico. Torres had a green card, but a criminal charge of drug possession 10 years ago violated the terms of his permanent residence.
“I was angry that I had served a country that didn’t want me now. I was angry that I had served a country that destroyed me. After they broke me, they wanted to abandon me,” he said.
I didn’t know why Torres was released after being detained for five days, but Ice was There was a policy At the time of considering US military service when deciding whether to take immigration enforcement measures. The Trump administration has it New policy memo has been issued to abolish such discretion.
The fear of being deported worsened Torres’s symptoms of PTSD. He has night horror. He cries when he’s out of his wife and child’s ears and tries to convince them that he’s okay. He fears that if he is deported to Mexico, he will be threatened by the cartels as he is a veteran and pastor.
Other deported veterans say these types of threats are real. David Baliu was deported to Kenya in 2008 after serving in the Army and Air Force Reserves as an Army recruiter enlisted him while he was in the US on a student visa.
Baliu said he suffered from depression after being detained for a year and was later deported to Kenya where he struggled to find work there. Baliu, who lived in the area where Al Shabaab terrorist groups were active, did not want to tell anyone he served in the US military.
“I didn’t want to risk my life,” he said, “The US government is deporting veterans to hostile circumstances.”
Eventually, Baliu was able to apply for US citizenship under a program established under the Biden administration for deported veterans. He returned to the United States and helped run the organization to support other deported veterans known as American veterans.
The group holds weekly Zoom meetings with deported veterans from around the world, connecting with immigration lawyers, advising how to access benefits for them for military service, and generally encourage each other.
Service Member Naturalization Process
Although immigrants with legal permanent residency have long been able to acquire US citizenship through military service, it is difficult to actually complete the naturalization process, especially when service members are stationed at military bases or overseas.
Takano’s bill can allow service members to apply for citizenship during basic training and establish a review process for immigration removal procedures. Other Democrats The Congress proposed a proposal to quickly expand the green card to the families of service members.
However, during his first term, Trump made several moves to make it more difficult to acquire citizenship, including adding mandatory waiting times to apply for citizenship and closing US immigration offices overseas and at several military bases. A federal judge ruled that the administration could not establish a mandatory waiting time, but now that Trump is once again president, his administration has tried to appeal the sentence.
The Department of Homeland Security has endured its actions when veterans were forced to leave the country saying they were in the law.
Congressional Republican leaders have so far shown no willingness to challenge Trump’s immigration policy. Still, Torres hopes that trying to bring the issue to Congress could avoid the toxic politics of immigration and instead cast it as a veteran issue.
“This is about veterans,” he says, “I love my country, and although this country doesn’t consider me a part of this country, I think this is my country. I think this is my home.”
