Deporting Veterans

[RSteve]

A couple of nights ago, on PBS, there was a documentary on the huge numbers of U.S. military veterans who have been deported in the past few years. Almost all were brought into the U.S. as small children by their immigrating parents. The parents applied for and got citizenship and thought that their children would be granted assumed citizenship, as had been the law for over a hundred years, but the laws for assumed citizenship ended. The documentary focused on two brothers who had been brought to the U.S. in the late 1940s from Mexico. Both served in ground combat units in Vietnam, one brother in the Army, one in the Marines. One is currently V.A. rated 60% disabled; the other 100%. Both, in their 70s, received deportation orders from the INS in the prior year.
In my ignorance, I thought if you served in the U.S. Armed Services, you were automatically granted citizenship.

About 10 years ago, a lady friend who is a naturalized U.S. citizen brought over her 17-year-old daughter from Ukraine on a student visa. The girl had been living with her father, my friend's ex-husband. The girl graduated H.S. in suburban Minneapolis and immediately enlisted in the Army Reserve. Following Basic and A.I.T. the girl's unit was activated and deployed to Afghanistan. While in the service, on active duty, she was granted U.S. citizenship. I can't understand why she was granted citizenship and others were/are not. Maybe because she still had a reserve obligation and speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, and English?

 

[Tbradsim]

Used to be you serve you’re made a citizen, when did it change?

 

[ftrplt]

Congress desperately needs to straighten out our immigration laws!! Deporting veterans and children who have known no other home/country/language is immoral. Lady Liberty is not happy with this situation; neither am I!!!! FTRPLT

 

[RSteve]

Deporting veterans and children who have known no other home/country/language is immoral.

Locally, a woman was deported who came to the U.S. from Mexico as a child. Her parents had tried to immigrate to the U.S. from Lebanon, but weren't granted admission. They did get "landed" status in Mexico where they lived for a few years before gaining U.S. entry and ultimately became citizens and having more children. The entire family, except this woman, are citizens. She married and has small children of her own. He deportation order was not to Mexico, but to Lebanon because she was born there, and her parents were never Mexican citizens.
On boarding the plane to Lebanon, she simply said, "I'll be back, soon."
I have no knowledge of how this was ultimately resolved, but the Congressman from her district did become involved. Any resolution was handled very quietly.