I think I became more patriotic and I
felt more American when I was deported.
We have people here in Tijuana, Mexico,
that are multiple recipients of the
Bronze Star for heroism. They can't cross
the border a short distance away to get
VA care because they've been deported.
Here's where we sleep. We stay here as
many as seven. And my heart and my mind
it's over there in the United States, you
know? In the U.S., serving in the Armed
Forces
has long been considered one of the
highest forms of patriotism. But what
that means for foreign-born military men
and women can be complicated. Three percent of our
military is foreign-born. Of that, 75,000
of them are not U.S.
citizens. Like their U.S.-born counterparts,
they suffer from high rates of PTSD and
substance abuse. But if they get in
trouble with the law, often times for
crimes related to their PTSD, they're
held to what some call double punishment,
serving a prison sentence and then also
being deported. Right before I was
discharged, I was having problems with
alcohol and drugs. Then I caught a DUI, I
was chaptered out of the military. It was
an honorable discharge, but my major
problem started right after the military
service. I was basically involved in a
shooting. Nobody was hurt, I wasn't the
person that did it, but at the end of the
day I'm the one that pled guilty to it.
But I went to prison for it and I did a
little bit over two years. I got deported
to Nogales Sonora, and basically they
just walked me to a door, you opened the
gate, and that was it. Six months later, I
snuck back into the country and I just
laid low under the radar from 2004
through 2010.
We are in TJ right now. Mexico. And the
reason why I'm here is because I got
deported. I was in the 82nd Airborne
Division with the paratroopers. After I
did my time there, I re-enlisted, got
deployed to Okinawa, Japan. And then I
moved to Washington First Special Forces
Group. I wanted to be in there for, for 20
years. I was in Washington until I got in
trouble.
I was drinking with my buddy or went to
the bar, and then we got into an
altercation with three guys. One thing
led to another and I had my gun on me,
and I ended up shooting one of them.
He got shot in the shoulder.
He ended up being, going to the
hospital. He lived, he didn't die or
anything. Assault 1 is like, like a serious
offense in Washington, carries nine
years, and because a weapon was
involved, that's five years, three years.
When I was incarcerated, I earned a AA degree
and I earned a couple of diplomas. My last
four years, I volunteered to fight
wildfires. Twelve years and four months
goes by, and I ended up in, like,
work-release. You go out in the community
and you get a job. The person that was in
charge of me, she comes to my work in the
morning and she's like, "You have to go back
to prison, then you have to get deported."
I got transitioned to immigration
detention center, and I was there for
five months.
No, I didn't. Even though I served in the
military and that I had my green card
and it just, yeah, that doesn't matter.
Even if a veteran serves
honorably as a U.S. legal resident, if
they're convicted of what's called an
aggravated felony, they can still face
deportation. Once limited to serious
crimes like murder and drug trafficking,
in the 1990s, aggravated felonies started to
include offenses like theft, failing to
appear in court, and even some
misdemeanors. Once a veteran is convicted
of this, it's considered a lifetime ban
on good moral character, which is
something they need to show to become U.S.
citizens. There was a ticket that I
didn't pay and I had a fender bender but
then it was, I was a deported felon, so
they picked me up again, they reinstated
my deportation. I don't know what it was,
but something told me, like, I'm gonna get
home one day in one way or the other. I
thought it was gonna be like, OK, you
know, maybe a couple years and took me
like almost nine years. For me, being
deported eventually brought out more
of the American because I started
really defining what it is to be in
America. April 13 of 2018 I was granted
citizenship through military service and
a pardon that pretty much got rid of the
criminal charge that I had plead guilty to.
It's funny because one day I was
watching the Mexican news. They we're
talking about deported veterans, and
I was like, thinking in my mind, "Man, I
hope that never happens to me!" The years
go by and I ended up in the
same situation. I can remember seeing
Hector on the news. Once I got deported, I went
looking for him. The day that I found him,
he got the pardon from the government,
that same day. Good afternoon, everybody!
this is specialist Barajas down here at
the Deported Veterans Support House, the
bunker. Before I was
deported, I was already working with
deported veterans and their families, but
when I got deported, now I was actually
working with actual guys that were
deported. We have people here in Tijuana,
Mexico, that are multiple recipients of
the Bronze Star for heroism. War heroes,
you know, and they can't go, they can't
cross the border a short distance away
to get VA care because they've been
deported. They're not angels but you know
what? Even in war we don't expect our
soldiers to deploy and be angels, we
expect them to go and do a mission, and
that's what these guys did.
Basically, I go back to and fro, back
and forth, to the Deported Veterans Support House.
I'll be doing some work in the next
couple days and then come back. The
Deported Veterans Support House initially is, is
the place where people can get housed,
it's a shelter, that's what it originally
started off of. You have that camaraderie
and, and the similarities of service and
how we grew up. One of our friends called
it "the bunker." Bunker to me comes to
mind like a place where you're hunkered
down. All the pictures of the gentlemen on the left are deported veterans that have passed away.
Here's where we are sleep. We stay here as many as seven.
Hygiene kits, whenever we have
food we give them food, we organize other
veterans in other parts of the country,
in Mexico and other countries as well. We
connect them with attorneys from the
ACLU and then they review their cases.
And just started off for the, you know,
three or four guys, and I mean right now
we have a database of almost 400 people
that we know of. I ended up staying in
the bunker for, for one week, me and my mom, but
she wanted to stay there with me because
she wanted to make sure that I was all
right, you know? Yeah. So she was sure, she
was sleeping on the cot, too, telling me
stories every night. It's virtually
impossible to know the number of
deported veterans because the government
doesn't track them. Estimates range from
a few hundred into the thousands, but
there's really no way to know the exact
number. There's been limited effort and
support by lawmakers to find any relief
for the deported veterans. When I go back
to and fro,
there, you know, especially when I'm at
the border, at the actual border, it reminds
me how long I was there, how people are
stuck back, back in Mexico, other veterans
that can't come home to their families.
When I go to the border fence, I really
don't like it because I feel betrayed
and I feel like I'm out of place, I
shouldn't be,
I shouldn't be here, you know? I should be
on the other side of the border with my
family, with my loved ones. You go from,
from up here, having everything, and then
to just, it's like the bottom of the
barrel, you know? I have to start all over
in a new place, new country, new
culture, you know, so it's not easy.
There's only a couple ways you can
return. Illegally, which is very, very
difficult. The only way you can return is if
you die. Then you're brought back, they're
gonna give your family a nice American
flag. As soon as I got my citizenship, one
of our brothers died. This is the only
way he was able to come home. They're
talking about a service, an honor,
and all this, and just, doesn't make sense. I
understand that I did something wrong,
that I should pay the consequences. I
spent 12 years incarcerated, you know? I'm
just, you know, hoping for a
second chance. My heart and my mind is
over there in the United States, you know?
I'm hoping that things will change, but
if I see the situation, it becomes
desperate, then I'm gonna try to walk
across illegally.
It's worth it to you, the risk? Yeah. It's worth it.
If it comes down to it, yeah.