Noteboom The Law Firm

Honorably Discharged Immigrant Veterans Being Deported

November 30, 2010 - The First Enrollment Act had been passed by Congress and signed into law by then President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The act forced immigrants to become part of the military draft at the time. Immigrants were dying for this country without being citizens. All green card-holding immigrants in modern day America are still subject to service in the armed forces. Those same immigrants, however, can now face detainment and deportation following their military service.

Congress changed the First Enrollment Act in 1996 when they passed the Immigrations Nationality Act. This act expanded the circumstances in which the U.S. could legally deport immigrants holding green cards. Nowhere in the language of the 1996 Act is there thought or alternative for those immigrants who have honorably served this country in the military. Instead, every immigrant is treated as a foreign national. Immigrant-veterans are on the same level as every other immigrant; their sacrifices for this country do not result in citizenship.

Immigrants being honorably discharged from the military, detained, and then deported is something rarely addressed. Immigrants volunteering to serve in today's military are not the same as immigrants seeking asylum or quarter in the U.S. Instead, immigrants who have honorably served this country, some of whom have suffered horrible injuries, are not considered citizens at the completion of their military service. Oddly enough, they still qualify to be buried in a foreign soil National Cemetery; their widow and/or orphans will still be given an American flag and that immigrant will be thanked for his or her service to this country. 

Most immigrants who are detained following their service are deported. Given the benefits bestowed on veterans honorably discharged, these two situations do not seem able to be reconciled.