Over at Change.org’s Immigrant Right’s blog Alex DiBranco, who is also my editor at the Women’s Rights blog, and pretty fabulous, has written an action item to demand that decision makers at the top take action to stop the deportation of immigrant military veterans who should have been granted citizenship in return for their service.
This is one of the most shameful failures of our government’s failures to keep promises that I have heard of in a while. They wave a flag of promises in front of a marginalized body in order to tempt them into service. Any immigrant, documented or undocumented, can join the military during a time of war, and begin an expedited naturalization process. After just one day of service that person is a resident alien, awaiting naturalization (as far as I understand the law). As long as they stay squeaky clean during service, which the military holds them to higher standard than non-alien members, then they are supposed to become citizens upon the completion of their enlistment.
But according to DiBranco’s article this is not happening, and it is embarrassing and infuriating.
Instead, they are being deported and held in detentions centers and sometimes being denied mental health treatment for PTSD.
Please, if you have time, spoons, and are willing, spread this far and wide. Please let Congress, President Obama, who made more promises to Immigrant Veterans, know that this is unacceptable. Whether they are hurting or dealing with illness from war, or are healthy and fine, they deserve better because they human and fulfilled their promised to serve this country when called to do so. It is our job to care for them now.
One way to perhaps challenge is to set forth certain issues at a military veteran’s immigration hearing, even if the immigration judge cannot rule on the issues. This way the issues are preserved for appeal, and once they get past the Board of Immigration Appeals, they can be presented to Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals.