Afghanistan War Veterans Deportation Is a Shocking Betrayal, Senator Says [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Afghanistan War Veteran’s Deportation Is a ‘Shocking Betrayal,’ Senator Says
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
MARCH 26, 2018

A United States Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan was deported to Mexico after his application for citizenship was denied because of a felony drug conviction, his lawyer and immigration officials said.

Miguel Perez-Montes, 39, was flown on Friday from Gary, Ind., to Brownsville, Tex., where he was escorted across the border to Mexico, Nicole Alberico, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Mr. Perez-Montes, who came to the United States legally when he was 8 years old, was convicted in 2010 for delivering cocaine to an undercover officer, a felony drug charge, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was placed into removal proceedings in 2012, while behind bars in Illinois, and had been in ICE custody since Sept. 23, 2016, Ms. Alberico said.

Mr. Perez-Montes’s case rose to prominence after Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and an Iraq war veteran, appealed to the Department of Homeland Security on Friday to stay his deportation and review his case.

“This is a deplorable way to treat a veteran who risked his life in combat for our nation,” she wrote in a letter to the secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen.

More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/us/army-veteran-deported.html