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Military servicemen worry over familty getting deported
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Soldiers fight for U.S., worry as family members face deportation
By Juliana Barbassa, Associated Press Writer | August 10, 2007
Yaderlin Jimenez was an illegal immigrant facing deportation. Her husband, a U.S. citizen and soldier, couldn't help; he was missing after an insurgent attack in Iraq.
The May disappearance of U.S. Army Specialist Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., earned the case national attention. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last month asked immigration officials to stop his wife's removal proceedings, and she became a legal resident.
But the Jimenezes' plight put a public face on the private anguish of a growing number of military families in similar straits who won't benefit from the same kind of attention.
"Every base has immigration problems," said Margaret Stock, an Army reservist and immigration attorney teaching at United States Military Academy at West Point. "The government they're fighting for is the same government that's trying to deport their families."
These families' stories show that living at the crossroads of the most divisive issues confronting America -- immigration policy and the Iraq war -- comes at a high cost.
"If I'm willing to die for the United States, why can't I just be allowed to be with my family?" said U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Eduardo Gonzalez, a citizen whose wife entered the country illegally from Guatemala when she was 5 years old and is now in deportation proceedings.
Those pushing for tighter immigration controls say giving the relatives of services members a free pass would only create an incentive for immigrants to enlist in order to legalize undocumented family members. They also don't favor narrow solutions addressed at individual cases like that of Yaderlin Jimenez.
"Until you restore order more broadly, you can't go around mopping up little messes like this and think you're accomplishing anything," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies. "This is what happens when you let 12 million people live in your country illegally. They're going to marry, get jobs, raise families just like everyone else, and you're going to end up with this kind of situation."
The federal government encourages immigrants to enlist by streamlining their citizenship applications, eliminating fees and making it easier for them to file paperwork while serving abroad. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also postponed deportation of immigrants on active duty until they are discharged.
Newcomers are responding. Since Sept. 11, 2001, 33,750 members of the U.S. Armed Forces have taken the citizenship oath. And about 35,000 green-card holders -- legal immigrants without citizenship -- are now serving in the military, Defense Department spokesman Maj. Stewart Upton said.
But as the number of immigrants -- particularly Hispanics -- serving in the military grows, the chances of military families being caught in an immigration bind increases. Tougher enforcement also has led to a leap in arrests of undocumented immigrants who had been living in the U.S. undetected.
The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on the treatment of service members' undocumented family members. Department of Homeland Security officials said all immigration cases are dealt with individually.
Immigration attorneys say undocumented immigrants who are close relatives of service members get no special considerations, and that federal authorities go after them with the same zeal as anyone else.
"There are no exceptions for them," said Margarita Silva, the attorney representing Gonzalez and his wife in Phoenix, where her case is pending.
At an immigration hearing in June, Mildred Gonzalez was given 60 days to leave the country voluntarily. After learning her husband was about to redeploy, the judge, an ex-military man, granted her a one-year extension.
Eduardo Gonzalez left in July for his third deployment to the Persian Gulf, where he manages a team of helicopter mechanics on an aircraft carrier. He hopes to make it back in time for his wife's deportation hearing, now scheduled for June 2008.
"The only way I can go and do my job well is to know my wife and son are safe here and doing well," he said.
The military has long recognized that military life can be a strain on service members' families, and that ensuring their well-being is a crucial part of maintaining troop morale. Along with assistance on everything from health care to planning a move, the military provides a range of free legal services to service members. But these officers are not trained in the complexities of immigration law, Stock said.
"We give relief to soldiers from everything else -- from oppressive loans, from a landlord that's trying to evict them while they're deployed. But one area where they haven't been given relief is immigration," Stock said. "Someone at the top needs to decide which is most important -- to keep soldiers' families together, because we know it's important for morale, or break them up in the interest of enforcing immigration law."
Sometimes reaching out to the military for legal help can backfire.
Before deploying to Iraq last September, Army Spc. Angel Rodriguez said he called the legal office at Fort Polk, La., to get help for his wife, Haydee, who'd entered the country legally as a 13-year-old tourist from Honduras but long overstayed her visa.
The base's response: as an illegal immigrant, she shouldn't be in the country, let alone on a military post.
Base officials later said Angel Rodriguez must have reached the wrong person, as officers should have shown Haydee which papers to fill out, then directed her to federal immigration services.
Afraid she'd be deported while her husband was overseas, leaving her 2-year-old son in limbo, Haydee decided to move to California to be near Angel's family.
His mother, her boyfriend and Angel's brother drove to Louisiana to pick her up. As visitors to the base, they were asked for identification. When his brother and the mother's boyfriend were unable to produce any, they were both detained. His brother, who is here legally, was released. But his mother's boyfriend, an illegal immigrant, was deported to Mexico.
"I joined the Army and I take pride in what I do," Angel Rodriguez said. "But it's hard being away and defending a country that doesn't want your family."
Base officials said they were required by law to alert U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"In this case, the chain of command did everything they were supposed to do," said Jim Beinkemper, public affairs officer at Fort Polk.
Because Haydee didn't enter without authorization, she can still be legalized, and she's scheduled to meet Aug. 14 with immigration officials who will quiz her on the validity of her marriage, among other issues. If they're convinced, she could walk out a legal resident.
"I'm really nervous," she said. "I'd feel so much safer if he (Angel) were here with me."
When Chertoff ordered Yaderlin Jimenez's case resolved following the disappearance of her husband in Iraq, he praised the efforts of troops and their relatives in a time of war.
"The sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families deserve our greatest respect," Chertoff said in a letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who'd asked him to intercede on the Jimenezes' behalf.
Now, Yaderlin Jimenez can focus only on getting news from her husband, who is still missing. He was supposed to come home in November, she said over e-mail.
"I think about my husband every day," she said. "I can't even sleep, I can't stop thinking about him."
But for many military families coping with the fear of deportation, seeing the Jimenez case resolved with a personal pardon instead of a policy change only increased their frustration.
"It's very difficult to leave my mother behind knowing that the country I'm risking my life and well-being for is threatening to send her back to Belize," U.S. Army Sergeant Kareem Castillo said in an e-mail from Iraq. "Knowing that the very person who encourages you to stay in the fight could be sent away is a sickening feeling."
Castillo left in June for a 15-month deployment to Iraq -- his third combat tour -- knowing his mother could be caught by immigration officials and forced to leave in his absence. Her last appeal was rejected in November 2006.
Now Hilligard Castillo avoids leaving the house, knowing every trip to the grocery store or post office could mean a run-in with immigration enforcement.
"Sometimes I feel so helpless," she said. "I wake up and feel pain, physical pain, because I'm so stressed."
On the other side of the world, her son struggles to find a solution to her situation while dealing with tensions and frustrations of his own.
"I'm not a politician, just a soldier in the U.S. Army," he said. "I'd like to see the government take an interest in situations like mine. As soldiers ... we guard this country with our very lives. We should be treated like the heroes and heroines Americans claim us to be."
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Good 'ol uncle Sam. |
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| Magnetonium |
I am not being racist or discriminative, but American government should do more work leagalizing the residence of people who are fighting and dying for United States, all to earn the citizenship rights, fighting for their country (no matter how bad or hopeless the cause is). Its total disrespect when immigrant families whose members fight for their new country have to go through this. There are many more illegals in USA who are not doing anything good for USA, and American-born boys dont want to die in Iraq either. So let the illegals do it to earn their citizenship. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. And there shouldn't be this terrible deportation situation for families of those who are fighting and dying for US policies. Their families deserve for Christ's sake a right to citizenship. Its the least the government can do. |
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