Leave No Soldier Behind
Veterans for Peace made it their mission to bring deported veterans back to U.S. soil
United States military veterans who are not citizens can be deported — they often are — and it can be very difficult for them to return to this country.
“The only way they can legally come back at the moment is die,” said Michael Lindley, a member of Veterans for Peace at the Aug. 2 meeting of San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice. “Then they can come back and be buried in the United States.”
The problem started with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1997, said Jan Ruhman, president of the San Diego chapter of Veterans for Peace, and the former operation coordinator for the Deported Veterans Advocacy Project. The bill took criminal offenses that were too minor to be a cause for deportation, such as state-level misdemeanors, and turned them into aggravated felonies.
Since then, about 4,000 to 5,000 veterans have been deported each year. This doesn’t just include veterans from more recent wars, like Iraq or Afghanistan, but it goes all the way back to Vietnam vets.
“It tied the hands of judges,” Ruhman said. “They had no judicial discretion. They could not do anything, other than gavel down if ICE sent them a referral.”
The judges cannot consider anything from the defendant’s life except the crime he committed, including whether he’s a veteran.
“I’ve actually sat in these courts and heard the judge put the gavel down and say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do, but I want to thank you for your service,” Ruhman said. “What a slap in the face that would be.” The act does not have a statute of limitations. Manuel Valenzuela said that he and his brother, Valentin Valenzuela, are Vietnam veterans who have been facing deportation proceedings since 2009, due to charges of drunk and disorderly and resisting arrest that were filed more than 10 years prior.
“It’s not right,” Manuel Valenzuela said. “We were out fighting for this country, had to kill for this country, to be shot at for this country. And then be thrown away like we’re trash, we’re nothing.”
The two brothers have been protesting around the country and a documentary about them, American Exile, will debut later this year. Manuel has met with Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton,
Joe Biden and he even sent a letter to Donald Trump; none of them have been able to help.
Four or five congressional bills that would prohibit the deportation of veterans have been introduced, but none have made it out of committee, Ruhman said. However, the Biden administration recently announced plans to prevent the deportation of veterans and bring back the ones that are currently in other countries.
Lindley has participated in activism as well, including the No Soldier Left Behind program, which takes murals of deported veterans and displays them around the country.
“These murals have been put up in Compton, Central Valley, Seattle, Phoenix … El Paso, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, San Diego, Portland, Washington, D.C.; Baja, California and New Mexico,” Lindley said.
San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Freedom will hold a press conference in San Pedro about deported veterans on Sept. 5 as part of Peace Week, a peaceful alternative to Fleet Week.
The Work of Veterans For Peace
Veterans for Peace has been able to provide deported soldiers around the world with softer landings, especially in Mexico. They give physical support to deported veterans, provide access to counselors, assistance with pension benefits and with claiming disabilities.
“They’re deported homeless, [with] no ID, no money and no telephone,” Ruhman said. “Many of them, they pick themselves up, but many are not able to, for whatever reason.”
Robert Vivar is co-director of Unified U.S. Deported Veterans which is in Tijuana, Mexico, next to the border. He started working for the organization in 2017. It was a new office installed by Veterans for Peace and an official chapter of the organization.
“I had already been working with Veterans for Peace,” Vivar said. “Their idea was to locate an office right by the border to intercept veterans that were being deported, to offer them an opportunity to be productive members of the community.”
Vivar said that during his time working for the center, he has helped at least 50 deported veterans.
“When we have the opportunity to make contact with a veteran before being deported, we do everything within our power to try to stop their removal,” Vivar said. “However, that has not been a success story. The veterans that we have been in touch with before their deportation ended up still getting deported.”
Their main area of work is veterans who have already been deported. They help veterans who have been sent to anywhere in the world. Vivar has recently been in contact with vets in India, Haiti and Canada.
Many members of the armed forces will apply for U.S. citizenship while on active duty. However, having to move frequently can make the process difficult. “You get moved around from base to base and your mail does not always follow you accurately,” Vivar said.
Veterans for Peace wants to solve this problem by amending the U.S. Code 1101(a) (22), so that when non-citizens take the oath of enlistment, they will be considered nationals of the United States. This would be retroactive to completion of basic training. They would not become citizens just because they are nationals, but it would be a lot harder to deport them. Vivar also would like to see a streamlined process making it easier for them to become citizens upon completion of basic training.
“How much more can you ask a person to
prove their loyalty and allegiance than by willing to give their lives in defense of the Constitution of the United States?” Vivar asked rhetorically.
Ruhman said that many non-citizen veterans are lied to and led to believe they will become citizens just by enlisting.
“Later in life [they] find out that’s not the case, when immigration puts a hold on them when they’re trying to get out of jail and go home,” Ruhman said.
When veterans are deported, it’s usually due to a criminal offense, sometimes minor, sometimes not.
“Most of the criminal offenses that get them deported are results of their military training,” Vivar said.
Vivar said that many who enter the military are young — 18, 19 or even 17 years old.
“They’re trained very aggressively by the best military training in the world to be aggressive, to be violent,” Vivar said. “They’re taught to go kill.”
Vivar said there is no decompression process or assessment into how they can integrate back into civilian life. Often this leads veterans to self-medicate via drugs and alcohol or domestic violence.
When non-citizens are charged with crimes, they face a double jeopardy of sorts — they can potentially face jail time or a fine and be deported afterwards.
“You’ve done your time, you paid your fine,” Vivar said. “But now you’re put into immigration proceedings, you have legal permanent residence revoked, and exiled to a country that even though you were born in, you in most cases don’t even remember because you left that country at a very young age.”