War Veterans Clash with the Department of Homeland Security

By JULIA SAENZ
Channel: Immigration

Current U.S. law provides for the automatic deportation of immigrants who commit certain statutorily enumerated crimes.  As with any legal proceeding, there is presumably a certain degree of prosecutorial discretion that the government may exercise when deciding which defendants to deport and which to provide with a second chance, however, for the following individuals, even their status as war veterans was not enough to dissuade the U.S. government from sending them back to their countries of nationality.  

 Manuel Valenzuela, his brother Valente Valenzuela, and Hector Lopez, all legal residents of the United States, have found themselves paying a much higher price for their criminal activity than they could have ever imagined.  The Valenzuelas are currently in the middle of an arduous and frightening battle for their right to remain in the United States, a country that they risked their lives for, while Lopez finds himself forced to start a new life in Mexico, a country that he has not lived in for over 40 years.   

 Yet, these individuals are not without fault.  They are in their current situation for mistakes that they made which landed them at the mercy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that deals with the deportation of immigrants.   

 Deportation procedures were instituted against Manuel Valenzuela in 2008 after his third conviction of a crime of “moral turpitude”.  These crimes included resisting arrest, assaulting an officer of the peace, and obstructing an officer of the peace.  His brother Valente was convicted of domestic violence and had deportation proceedings instituted against him only two months later. According to Lopez, the crimethat resulted in his deportation was possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute.  

While it may not excuse their actions, Jan Ruhman, member of the San Diego chapter of Veterans for Peace, thinks that perhaps there is an alternative explanation for these individuals’ criminal inclinations.  “No one that goes to warcomes back unchanged (…) All veterans that come back, are adrenaline junkies, who have not come back and adjusted well to society,” Ruhman states.  Whether it is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”) or alcohol and drug addiction, there are numerous mental and physical afflictions that veterans suffer from that many believe may lead them to criminality.  Lopez is a perfect example of the struggles that veterans face upon returning home, stating that after his tour of duty in the invasion of Grenada, he suffered from PTSD and could not receive any treatment, which in turn led him to drugs and alcohol in an effort to self-medicate.  

The number of veterans that have been deported is unclear.  According to ICE they are “unable to provide the requested statistics because ICE’s systems of records are not currently configured to retrieve detention and removal data based upon present military or veteran status.”  Ruhman, however, contends that “since 1996 when the law was changed by the Republican congress, signed by Bill Clinton, they probably deported somewhere in excess of 3000 to 4000 veterans every year.”  

Recently the Obama administration announced that deportation proceedings involving individuals that have not committed crimes will be put on hold for the time being, and furthermore, that factors such as veteran status will be taken into account when deciding whether or not to move forward with specific cases.  These reforms may help the Valenzuelas as they continue to fight tirelessly for their right to stay in the United States, however, for Hector Lopez and countless others that have already been deported, it is probably too little, too late.

Lopez, for his part, believes that the U.S. government wronged him: “I think that if I’m good enough to kill for the United States, and I’m good enough to die for the United States, I think I should be good enough to live in the United States.”  Unfortunately for him, the U.S. government does not seem to agree.