Opinion: It’s time to bring these US military veterans home

Editor’s Note: Saúl Ramírez is Sociology Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard University, PD Soros Fellow and Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project. Follow him @SaulRamirezR. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

Bartolomé, a US military veteran, has spent the last 15 Fourth of July holidays in Mexico. But not by choice. Despite his eight years of service and honorable discharge, he’s not allowed to enter the United States. He’s one of the estimated thousands of veterans who have served this country out of patriotism and devotion and have subsequently been deported.

Bartolomé (a pseudonym) was born in Mexico. As a child, he relocated to the US with a tourist visa before becoming a lawful permanent resident. After graduating from high school, he joined the US Armed Forces. He did it “for the pride of country. This is the land of opportunity. This is the land where dreams come true,” Bartolomé told me. His national pride compelled him to risk jeopardizing his life for the country: a colossal commitment that, according to the Pew Research Center, less than 1% of US adults over the last 50 years have made. Like the US military personnel who, since the American Revolutionary War, have affirmed their allegiance to the United States, “so help me God,” Bartolomé was prepared to die while fulfilling his military obligations. At least, he reckoned, he would have been “doing something honorable, something worthy, something patriotic.”

Struggling to reintegrate into civilian life, he was convicted of a single, drug-related, non-violent criminal offense and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. With good conduct, he served 16 months in a low-level security penitentiary. But when his sentence ended, he was deported to Mexico, where he has lived in exile for over 15 years, or about a dozen times longer than his federal prison term. “It’s a kick in the nuts,” he said of his deportation. “It’s a stab in the back.”

Between 2013 and 2018, 250 US military veterans were placed in removal proceedings and 92 were deported. Unfortunately, an accurate count of deported veterans is nonexistent, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not keep a comprehensive record of removed US veterans.

The Veteran Service Recognition Act, recently referred to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, could address three pressing issues. First, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must determine immigrants’ veteran status before removal proceedings commence and weigh noncitizens’ military service when adjudicating immigration cases. The bill would establish the Military Family Immigration Advisory Committee to review and issue suggestions before removing active service members, noncitizen veterans, or eligible family members.

Second, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in coordination with the Department of Defense, would be required to grant military recruits and veterans an opportunity to become naturalized US citizens. In 2021, through the Executive Order on Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans, President Joe Biden directed the Departments of State, the Department of Justice and DHS to “facilitate naturalization for eligible candidates born abroad and members of the military.”

Since then, military naturalizations have increased appreciably, doubling between Fiscal Years 2020 (4,570) and 2022 (10,640). Complementing this executive order by implementing mechanisms to improve the naturalization process, the bill would institute a program to train recruiters to know how noncitizen US Armed Forces members would acquire citizenship. Each military branch’s Judge Advocate General Corps would liaise with USCIS regarding military personnel’s naturalization applications, and eligible noncitizens could apply for naturalization as early as their first day on active duty or the Selected Reserve.

Third, the Secretary of Homeland Security would have the authority to adjust the legal status of eligible deported veterans, allowing them to return to the US. The bill would create procedures allowing DHS to admit individuals, who were previously issued a final order of removal, for lawful permanent residence if DHS determines that the noncitizen is a veteran and is not inadmissible.

“It is shameful that [noncitizen veterans] are being exiled from the same country they risked their lives to protect and defend,” lamented Rep. Mark Takano [D-CA], when he and his colleagues introduced this bill in 2022. The bill passed in the House, though about 98% of Republicans voted against it. It was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Sen. Alex Padilla said, “Since the founding of our nation, citizens, and noncitizens have served together in the United States military, fighting side by side in defense of our nation and our values. We cannot disregard their service and sacrifice.”

I have spent hours interviewing deported veterans, and for many of them, including Bartolomé, the passage of this bill would be life-altering. They take responsibility for the crimes that culminated in their deportation but feel they are incessantly being punished. They have earned and are eligible for Veterans Affairs benefits but can’t use them. All yearn to return to the place they call home.

“I’m not a career criminal,” Bartolomé explained. “It was a non-violent crime. It was a first-time offense. I’m not saying it was right. I know I made a mistake, and I say to the United States, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry with all my heart.’ I regret it a million percent.”

Bartolomé’s life in Mexico has been an everlasting punishment. Incarceration took his freedom, but deportation stole his dignity. When he was deported, he left behind a young son in the US, and he remembers the boy visiting him in Mexico and asking, “‘Daddy, are you coming home with us?’ Broke my heart.” To add insult to injury, his father, brother and nephew died in the US in his absence.

When his mother passed away recently, he was initially denied humanitarian parole. “I felt like my soul was taken from me. I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore,” Bartolomé agonized. But eventually, he was afforded a 72-hour stay in the country to bury his mother and was grateful to be her pallbearer.

Regrettably, for many deported veterans, death is the only ticket home. Veterans who did not receive a dishonorable discharge are entitled to a military burial in the United States. Tragically, numerous US veterans have attended their homecoming perpetually asleep.

Veteran deportations defy the US military’s sacrosanct commitment to leave no one behind. Bartolomé served under that motto, and his final removal order marked his life indelibly. “They would preach to us in the military, ‘Don’t leave your brother behind. Fight for the ones to your left and right,’ and I felt left behind.”

Significantly, the military recruits heavily in marginalized communities, including Los Angeles: one of the metropolitan areas with the most noncitizen immigrants. The menacing combination of progressively failing military recruitment, noncitizen military drop-out rates within the first three months (4%) being half that of US-born citizens and the uptick in the percentage of immigrant veterans (from 2% in 1995 to 3% in 2018) suggest that the trend of an escalating number of noncitizens joining the US Armed Forces may persist. As a result, the urgency in addressing noncitizen military members’ precarious situation is particularly palpable now.

“But these are criminals,” detractors will retort. Yes, deported US veterans committed a crime. But this is not extraordinary; one in three veterans has been arrested or incarcerated at least once. All face criminal punishment: incarceration. But US citizens return home after they’ve served their time. Swearing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, all veterans—immigrants or not—have earned the right to live in the US.

The time to repatriate Bartolomé, and his deported US veteran brothers and sisters, is overdue. Let us allow him to regain his dignity. To be the productive member of society that he promises he will be. To enjoy the pecan pancakes from his favorite US restaurant and change the flowers on his parents’ graves. “All I ask,” he sighed, “is for a chance to come back and not to be in a body bag.”

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