Deported US Veterans want to come home – PB/TK
U.S. military veterans deported to Mexico say they want to come back home – By Sandra Dibble / June 4 2017
Deported U.S. military veterans told members of a U.S. congressional delegation visiting Tijuana on Saturday that they had paid dearly for their crimes and wanted to come home.
“I committed a crime and I accept it,” said Eduardo Agustin Garcia, 59, a former U.S. Navy airman who grew up in Oxnard but was deported to Mexico in 1999 after serving a four-year sentence on a drug charge.
Garcia, who now works in a call center in Tijuana, was among a dozen deported veterans who spoke briefly to members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all Democrats on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The deported veterans — some of whom served in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — told of the pride they had felt in the U.S. armed services. They talked about how they missed their families in the United States and needed access to Veterans Affairs services. “I just want to go home,” they repeatedly said.
Held at the Deported Veterans Support House near the U.S. border, the event aimed to bring visibility to this issue affecting lawful permanent residents who served in the military and were honorably discharged, but then were convicted of crimes. Because they had not become U.S. citizens, they were deported after serving their sentences, returning to a country that many had left as children.
Continue to latimes.com article: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-deported-vets-20170604-story.html
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