Immigrant vets face deportation despite service

[Bozita]

Source: AP

Last Updated: October 24. 2010 3:02PM
Immigrant vets face deportation despite service
Juliana Barbassa / Associated Press


San Francisco— When Rohan Coombs joined the U.S. Marine Corps, he never thought one day he would be locked up in an immigration detention center and facing deportation from the country he had vowed to defend.

Coombs, 43, born in Jamaica, immigrated to the United States legally as a child with his family. He signed up to serve his adopted nation for six years — first in Japan and the Philippines, then in the Persian Gulf during the first war with Iraq.

Up to 8,000 non-citizens enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces every year and serve alongside American troops. As of May 2010, there were 16,966 non-citizens on active duty.

If they die while serving, they are given citizenship and a military funeral. If they live and get in trouble with the law, as Coombs did, they can get caught in the net of a 1996 immigration law that greatly expanded the list of crimes for which non-citizens can be deported.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20101024/NATION/10240322/1361/Immigrant-vets-face-deportation-despite

[silverojo]

1. The title is a bit misleading

I thought this was horrible, until I read the full article. This isn't about deporting vets, it's about deporting people who have committed crimes.

The key parts of this article are conveniently left out of your preview:

"In 1992, he was court-martialed for possession of cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute, and was given 18 months of confinement and a dishonorable discharge." (This is not serving honorably.)

"In 2008, he was busted for selling marijuana to an undercover officer while working as a bouncer in an Orange County bar. He spent eight months in state prison." (Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.)

"I just want another chance," he says? He had 16 years of second chances!

And how about this other guy we're supposed to feel sorry for....

"In 2008, he was convicted of six weapons-related offenses, including two involving firearms dealing, and served time in federal prison. Now, like Coombs, he is facing deportation and is feeling betrayed."

HE'S feeling betrayed? We trusted him, valued him as one of our troops, and gave him military benefits. But he comes back and risks the lives of civilians by dealing firearms illegally.

I agree that it's unfair, how a person gets automatic citizenship and a military burial if he or she dies. What good does citizenship do then?!? They should be rewarded while they're alive.

But it's hard to feel sorry for people who join the military to defend our country (one would imagine), yet engage in criminal acts that put our citizens in peril.

[dballance]

2. I Have to Say I Agree

The crimes these people committed SHOULD make them ineligible to stay here. Seems like a pattern for them and that won't change. We have enough miscreants here already. Why should we take on more of them?

[emilyg]

3. Agree.

[DissedByBush]

4. I didn't think this sounded right

The military is normally a fast-track to citizenship for honorably serving foreigners.

[pasto76]

5. words from someone who has never served

If this man served in war time, there is no excuse for him not being a citizen. Even having served in peace time, it is more service to this country than 99.2% of the country.

any person who serves in this military deserves the respect it is due. Apparently this guy needs more jail time, but to this vet(me), deporting him is the same as denying appropriate disability benefits to wounded soldiers - thrown away like a tissue.

could be that he is having problems from the WAR IN '91. His rap sheet looks a lot like thousands of soldiers and veterans today.

I would advise you against judging what is serving honorably from your sofa.


SGT PASTO

[EFerrari]

6. Exactly. n/t

[cstanleytech]

7. Sorry but in this case he should not

get citizenship because fact he did not receive an honorable discharge but rather a dishonorable discharge and thats the key problem right there.
After all the agreement was he serve his term and in that he failed, it wasnt that he serve in a war and "bam" automatic citizenship.

[aquart]

8. Yes.

I don't believe that foreigners should fight our battles. You enlist and wear one of our uniforms, you are one of us.

[TheMadMonk]

9. What of all the good white Merkins who rape little girls? Who take finger...

...bones for trophies, build dogpiles out of naked prisoners and kill their mates for daring to be honorable. etc. etc.

He may not have been born in America but he most certainly is a child of America and deserves the citizenship he served to gain.

Furthermore, his birth nation does not deserve to be saddled with one of America's failures.