The Fight is On: Banished Veterans are looking for a few good advocates and activists to join in...

STOP the Deportation of U.S. Veterans

Arrested, Imprisoned, Banished & Betrayed On Behalf of a Grateful Nation

Ed Note: This piece also appears in the VVAW Spring 2010 The Veteran newspaper, and Jan has submitted a National Call to Action to VVAW, for adaptation as a National VVAW Campaign.WH

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By Jan Ruhman

Operations Coordinator

www.VetSpeak.org

When I first heard of the deportation of veterans I said Bull Shit, they don’t deport veterans. After 62 years I should have known better. At first I became pissed off at yet another example of our government treating veterans like condoms, “use them once and throw them away”,  and when I calmed down I took action.

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If you had Googled “deportation of veterans, deporting U.S. Military Veterans, banished veterans” or any combination of words to describe this national disgrace in January of 2009 you would have found very little on this injustice.  Since then we have, with the guidance and assistance of a dedicated Immigration and Criminal Defense Attorney, Heather Boxeth, who serves as Lead Council:                                                                                                                           

• Formed a National Banished Veterans Defense Committee & Clearing House  in San Diego California.
•  Drafted the Proposed Amendment to the Law & Legal Rational
•  Created a Banished Veterans Brochure with an outline of issue, proposed change in law, a brief history and talking points.
• Created a Letter for concerned citizens to send to The President of the United States and to the Director of Homeland Security requesting that they stay further deportation of former U.S. Military Veterans
• We have given dozens of interviews to newspapers, radio and television.
•  Spoken before The Military Order of the Purple Heart and the American Legion as well as numerous community groups in Southern California.
• Presented the issue to the Veterans For Peace National Convention in 2009 and put on a workshop with a panel that included a Vietnam Era Veteran and member of VVAW, Louie Alvarez, who is facing deportation, a family member, Angelica Madrigal, our lead attorney, Heather Boxeth and me.
• Traveled to Washington DC, walked the halls of Congress and lobbied members of Congress.
• Lobbied Congressional Representatives in San Diego, Orange County & Pennsylvania.
• Presented the issue to the 2009 National Lawyers Guild Convention which adopted a resolution to form a National Banished Veterans Committee of the NLG to advocate for a change in the laws to make all veterans “U. S. Nationals”.
• Submitted a Resolution to the Democratic Caucus process in Colorado that is currently being shepherded through the system by Calixto Cabrera of VVAW.
• Met with all five (5) members ‘of the San Diego Congressional Delegation and several other Districts in Southern California with members of Veterans For Peace, Chapter 91 who have adopted the issue as a main focus of concern for community outreach and congressional action.  
• Set-up a website run by the affected veterans at www.banishedveterans.info

Today if you Google any combination of words to describe the deportation of veterans you will find hundreds of Newspaper articles, TV Interviews, Radio Shows and blogs on the issue and were just getting started.

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Many regressive Members of Congress insist it’s an “Immigration” issue and will be dealt with when they take up Immigration Reform. Bull shit! This is a National Veterans Issue and don’t let anyone try and tell you different and if you think Healthcare was mean spirited just wait until they take on immigration reform. For me, as a Vietnam Veteran it’s simple, it’s a Semper Fi thing, “No Man Left Behind”. It is absolutely not an immigration issue as some anti-immigrant members of congressman would like to cloak it.

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In short we have shined a light on an issue that our government would like kept in the dark. But a year later little has changed, the Deportation of U. S. Military Veterans continues unabated. And while I am proud of the progress that we have made with no money and very few volunteers I cannot help but  imagine the impact and progress that could have been made had Banished Veterans become a National Campaign of VVAW, adopted by and worked on by members and supporters all over the country.

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It’s time to shine a brighter light on this injustice. It’s time to take this issue to all Congressional Districts in all 50 states. It’s time to take this issue to all veterans’ organizations nationally and to ask them to support a resolution to protect these veterans. I propose that VVAW adopt at its upcoming National Steering Committee Meeting the following Resolution for the memberships consideration. These men served. They were willing to die to protect and defend this nation. We can do no less than form and deploy the reactionary squad and march to the sounds of the battle in defense of these veterans.

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To view the photos and read the stories of some of the Banished Veterans go to the website that they have created and run at www.banishedveterans.info  and if you are so moved, click on “DONATE".
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www.VetSpeak.org

Another Front In The Fight For Veterans Rights...

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Ed Note:  Jan Ruhman, VetSpeak Operations Coordinator, VVAW SoCal Organizing Coordinator, and 2010 President of Veterans For Peace, San Diego, is up to his ass in alligators on this important issue, out in California.  To date, he has taken the issue to the recent VFP National Conference, and has been to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on behalf of these Veterans who are now being disowned by the country that they served in war. We are re-publishing this article in full (photos added from Google archives), in the hopes that Huffington Post is as anxious as we are to get the word out, as far and wide as we can, to any and all who will listen.  Folks who will perhaps lend some support, either financially, or by contacting Banished Veterans, and offering active, boots on the ground, support.  They need money, to finance travel and legal fees; warm bodies to rally, and to lobby, lending personal voices of support for the Victims of this outrage, and their families.  You can make personal contact at the enclosed links, and you may make a direct donation to the efforts by clicking on http://www.sdvfp.org/donation.htm. WH


Veterans: Banished and Betrayed

By Barton Kunstler
Author, “The HotHouse effect”
Originally posted at HuffingtonPost, 01/13/2010 
x“Banished veterans." The phrase shouldn't make sense. Someone joins the military, fights in a war, returns home, and then is banished? Thankfully, this can't happen here...

But it is happening here. Thousands of men and women who have risked their lives in the country's wars have been deported or are living under the threat of deportation because they committed non-violent crimes that often wouldn't warrant serving jail time. Many of these vets suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition often overlooked by our nation's health care system.

These vets can be deported because they are not U.S. citizens. Gabriel Delgadillo, a Vietnam veteran, committed a burglary in 1988. Eight years later, burglary was declared a deportable offense. Only then, in a retroactive application of the new law, was he deported, leaving behind a wife and seven children. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) officially deplored Delgadillo's deportation in May, 1999, stating:
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"These harsh new measures have now snared immigrants who spilled their blood for our country. As the INS prepares to deport these American veterans, we have not even been kind enough to thank them for their service with a hearing to listen to their story and consider whether, just possibly, their military service or other life circumstances outweigh the government's interest in deporting them".

Robyn Sword, an activist on behalf of banished vets whose fiance, Rohan Coombs, is facing deportation for drug offenses, pointed out in an interview that many people simply can't get past the image of a "convicted felon." Who wants them here, right? That might be understandable in cases of violent crime but such an attitude is inexcusable when applied to most banished veterans.

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, sums up the dilemma that faces so many veterans:

"We sent these kids to war - and war has affected their mental and psychological condition. Providing support for returning veterans is an obligation we owe to those who have sacrificed so much for our country".
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But the courageous Leahy and Filner aside, you won't find many politicians willing to risk being called "soft on criminal aliens" - even if they were willing to send those men and women into combat. But the knee-jerk sound-bite reaction doesn't capture the truth of the situation.
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No one is claiming PTSD as an "excuse" for someone who commits a non-violent crime, but it is a cause. Nor are any of the banished vets claiming PTSD as a reason for not facing their punishment under the law. They were busted, went to court, served their time. In California, grand theft means stealing $400 or more and is a deportable offense; DUI is also a deportable felony in many states. Felons deserve punishment according to the law. But banishment goes far beyond the bounds of a reasonable sentence. It is absolute in scope, and psychologically cruel. Yet we still insist on betraying people who instead deserve our thanks and the support of whatever social services it takes to support them as citizens, as equals in American society.
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Craig Shagin, a Harrisburg, PA immigration lawyer and author of the book, Deporting Private Ryan, describes a client who at 17 years old got into a fist fight in school in Georgia and was given a one year suspended sentence. Eleven years later, after military service, he was arrested for an even lesser offense, but because of the fighting conviction, he became subject to deportation. Had the fist-fight occurred in many other states, he would have gotten probation and would not have been deported.
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PTSD is devastating and plays a role in many of these veterans' legal problems. Veterans Administration hospitals are overwhelmed with PTSD cases. The great majority of arrested vets with PTSD have families and friends, jobs, aspirations, and struggles just like everyone else. Half of all Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD have been arrested. Labels might cast them as pariahs, but by now we should be smart and compassionate enough to know that many different paths lead to arrest and that an arrest doesn't define one's humanity.

Vets have been deported for registering their neighbors' cars under their own names, adultery, smoking marijuana (now legal in many states), stealing two chickens, and shoplifting. As Shagin states, "The courts are reading the regulations of the statute...in a hyper-minimalist way and without any consideration for the historical antecedents for what a national is." A "national" is a non-citizen who owes allegiance to the U.S. and in return receives legal protections, including immunity from deportation. Every member of the armed forces has taken such an oath of allegiance and one can argue that legally every veteran is a "national" and hence not subject to deportation; inexplicably, the courts have not seen it that way.

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At least not since 1996. That year, the Republican Congress passed - and then President Bill Clinton signed - the Immigration and Naturalization Act which drastically expanded the list of crimes for which one could be deported. Shagin points out that before 1996, there were virtually no cases of veterans being deported. Before 1996, the courts routinely considered one's veteran's status as a reason to bar deportation even for the most serious crimes and virtually none were deported. No longer. Since 1996, estimates of the numbers of deported vets are in the 30,000 to 40,000 range, although no one knows for sure: the exact figures have never been released.

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It gets worse. Jan Ruhman, a San Diego ex-Marine with two tours of duty in Vietnam who is now a leading advocate for banished vets, notes that the 1996 law was written with entrapment in mind. Offenders are often faced with a choice of two plea-bargains with differing jail sentences, for instance, a three-year or a one-year sentence. Naturally, he or she takes the one-year sentence. Because of technicalities written into the 1996 law, it is often the lesser charge that results in deportation. Many criminal lawyers are unaware of the implications for immigrants of these lesser pleas, and both Ruhman and Shagin are convinced that the law was written to entrap as many immigrants as possible into making the wrong choice. This is quite likely, as the law also states that judges have no discretion in deportation cases. They cannot consider a person's veteran, family, work, or health status. Such considerations are a mainstay of our legal system and it was malicious of Congress to apply such a standard to a specific group across a wide range of minor offenses.
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This wouldn't be the case were the vets granted citizenship. And it turns out that's exactly what they were promised by their recruiters. They were already legal permanent non-citizen residents with green cards, as required for joining the armed forces. As Sword points out, army recruiters target low-income immigrant neighborhoods, and most of these recruits were promised by recruiters that they would receive citizenship because they signed up for military duty. The armed forces, in effect, lied to them and the military sure hasn't had these veterans' backs when the empty promises led to deportation from the country for which they risked their lives. In fact, if they had died in battle, they would have been qualified to receive a full-scale military burial, coffin draped in an American flag, and a 21-gun salute. But alive they are castaways.
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There's another deadly wrinkle to all this. Deported vets who served in Iraq and Afghanistan include immigrants from the Middle East. When they are sent back there, they run a seriousrisk of becoming targets of revenge In some countries, having served in the U.S. armed forces could lead to a loss of citizenship, and any country that subscribes to the International Criminal Court could prosecute those vets for war crimes.

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In the end, the banished vets are "just" a bunch of forgotten ex-soldiers, but fate has seen to it that they're not only to be forgotten, but removed entirely from the nation they served. Director of Homeland Security Napolitano should order an immediate stay of deportation for all vets currently living in the shadow of this cruel and unusual punishment. President Obama constantly pays lip-service to his respect for the men and women of our armed forces. He speaks eloquently of their sacrifice. He plans to send another 30,000 more into Afghanistan. But does his concern extend to this forgotten class of soldiers? Will he show his supporters that he has the courage of his rhetoric? Please, take it upon yourself to call upon President Obama and Congress to grant citizenship and restore the right to live in the United States to these banished and betrayed veterans of our country's wars.
xMore information on this topic can be found at http://banishedveterans.intuitwebsites.com/.

Contact Jan Ruhman to become actively involved:
jan@vetspeak.org
Cell # 858-361-6273

Contact Legal Team:
Heather M. Boxeth, Attorney-At-Law
hmboxeth@gmail.com

Freedom isn't Free, please Donate to assist our campaign against this outrageous behavior towards Veterans who have honorably served their country, the United States of America.

http://www.vetspeak.org/