A way back for deported U.S. veterans?
The Biden administration said Friday that it plans to invite back U.S. veterans who have been deported, along with their immediate family members, and pledged to ensure that those veterans receive their benefits.
“It’s our responsibility to serve all veterans as well as they have served us — no matter who they are, where they are from, or the status of their citizenship,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis R. McDonough said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
“Keeping that promise means ensuring that noncitizen service members, veterans, and their families are guaranteed a place in the country they swore an oath — and in many cases fought — to defend.
We at VA are proud to work alongside (the Department of Homeland Security) to make that happen.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas directed immigration authorities to “immediately conduct a review of policies and practices” to ensure that eligible current and former noncitizens who served in the military can remain or return to the U.S.
Long Beach resident Martha Garcia is hopeful that will mean the return of her son, Jose Segovia Benitez, a former legal permanent resident who served in the U.S. Marines. He was honorably discharged but was deported in 2019 after running afoul of the law.
“I wish with all my heart that he be returned home,” Garcia said Friday. “He’s in danger over there.”
Segovia, a 1999 Poly
High School graduate, was deported to his native El Salvador, a country he had last seen when he was 3 years old. Prior to his deportation, Segovia served time for domestic violence and other felony convictions after returning home from combat tours in Iraq. But his family and other supporters said he suffered a brain injury from a blast in Iraq and never received proper medical care for that injury or post traumatic stress. They said his behavior changed after his stint in the military.
The joint statement by DHS and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a “robust interagency coordination effort” to create a resource center, remove barriers to naturalization for eligible individuals, and “review removal policies and practices to avoid future unjust removals.”