Deported Army vet can return home
TIJUANA, Mexico — Hector Barajas, who became the face and voice of deported veterans after his own deportation, will be allowed to return to the place he considers home and become a U.S. citizen.
Barajas burst into joyous tears seated on a couch in Tijuana on Thursday afternoon in front of a large U.S. flag as he read a document informing him that he would be sworn in as a citizen on April 13 in San Diego.
“I’m coming home, Mom!” he added.
Nathan Fletcher, a candidate for county supervisor who has championed the deported veterans’ cause, sat beside Barajas on the couch, his hand rubbing Barajas’ shoulder in congratulations. Norma Chavez-Peterson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego, sat on the other side of Barajas, telling him that an ACLU attorney had already arranged how he would get back home.
Barajas was honorably discharged from the Army in 2001 but struggled readjusting to civilian life. He took a plea deal for a charge of shooting at an occupied car in 2002. Because of that conviction, the government took away his green card, and he was deported in 2004 after he finished a prison sentence.
“I made bad decisions,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune last year about that time in his life. “I put myself in that situation . ... I wouldn’t put myself in that situation again.”
Barajas founded the Deported Veterans Support House, known to many as “the Bunker,” in 2013 to support deportees in Tijuana. He became a leader in a push for legislative changes to help U.S. military veterans who had not become citizens avoid deportation and to bring back those who were already removed.
He was born in Mexico but raised in Los Angeles from age 7. Because he had a green card, he was able to serve in the Army and was part of the 82nd Airborne Division from 1995 to 2001. At the time, he thought he’d automatically become a citizen, but that was not the case.
Members of the military are allowed to apply for citizenship with no waiting period. They still have to fill out the paperwork and pass the tests.
Noncitizens who serve in the military are still at risk for deportation if they commit crimes that can cause the U.S. to revoke their green cards.
Advocates have argued that conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and other challenges that veterans face when they leave the military can make it more likely that they commit such crimes. They say that the veterans should be expected to serve whatever sentences they’re given for the criminal convictions but that deportation goes too far. The ACLU has documented at least 239 cases of deported veterans living in 34 countries.