As the Obama administration offers wholesale amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants from Central and South America, hundreds of non-citizen military veterans are being deported by the federal government, according to a new report published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday. Some of the veterans served in Vietnam and foreign engagements several decades ago. Others fought for the United States in battles waged over the last couple of years. “The majority were legal U.S. residents for decades,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Despite have served their newly-adopted country valiantly, the federal government opted to throw the kitchen sink of immigration law at these war veterans. Many of those being targeted have been accused of low-level offenses, and sometimes even less. “The majority were swept up in changes to immigration law that expanded the offenses for which noncitizens can be deported and stripped immigration judges of discretionary authority,” adds The Journal.
At the moment, there are approximately 12,000 non-U.S. citizens on active duty. Another 500,000 foreign-born veterans are currently residing in the US. The Department of Homeland Security does not have exact figures on how many of these veterans have been deported.
However, the ACLU’s findings suggest the federal government has been steadily deporting hundreds of these veterans for a number of years now. The left-wing civil rights organization has identified 239 of these deportees, but they stressed that the number may be a severe underestimate.
Although non-US citizens can enlist in the US military and fight and die for the Republic, they are not offered extra-protection against the threat of deportation. According to Georgetown Law’s David Cole, “foreign nationals are generally entitled to the equal protection of the laws, to political freedoms of speech and association, and to due process requirements of fair procedure where their lives, liberty, or property are at stake.” Cole notes however that these protections are restricted insofar as the federal government can still exercise its power to deport foreign nationals. Here, a paradox emerges. Cole highlights this problem using the example of the First Amendment:
It makes no sense to say that a foreign national has a First Amendment right to criticize government officials or to join political groups without fear of criminal prosecution, but that he may be deported for the same activities. Just as one cannot be a little bit pregnant, a foreign national cannot be a little bit restricted in his or her right to speak.
The legal nightmare is only compounded by the fact that many non-US citizens erroneously believe that by serving in the military, they would automatically be granted the full privileges of citizenship.
“The heart of this tragedy is that all these people were eligible to naturalize,” stated Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrant rights at the ACLU in Los Angeles. “Many of them believed that by serving, they automatically became citizens.”