SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Advocates for deported veterans around the world are concerned with Donald’s Trump’s election victory and with Republicans’ control of Congress, according to Robert Vivar, Director of the Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Resource Center.
Vivar and others, have been lobbying for the Veterans Service Recognition Act, which would give about 40,000 members of the military, who are non-citizens, a path to citizenship.
This would avoid deportation in the future should they be convicted of a crime while on active duty or after their days in uniform.
The bill will also create a committee that would review cases and in some instances, reverse them, allowing deported veterans to return to the U.S.
And it would entitle deported veterans to benefits such as medical care and treatment from the Veterans Administration.
“They don’t consider themselves foreigners, they consider themselves U.S. veterans,” said Vivar.
Vivar stated the bill had made great progress, they hoped it would pass after the election, but now it seems unlikely.
“We are very concerned,” he said. “We need our congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle to understand that this is not an immigration issue put that aside, this is a veterans’ issue when you’re in the battlefield, that non-citizen will bleed just like the citizen.”
A PBS report three years ago said 94,000 vets have been deported since 1996 when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was approved.
“Many have been deported for very minor offenses and that’s why a lot of them have been able to be repatriated here recently in the last couple of years,” Vivar said.
According to Vivar, it’s hard to say how many deported veterans have actually been sent abroad because not all of them seek services or help from groups like the Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Resource Center.
“Today is a very mixed emotion day for deported Veterans around the world, a lot of them feel betrayed after coming home and making some mistakes, they end up getting kicked out of the country they were willing to defend, they were willing to die for the United States.”