Discharged, Then Discarded, a report by the ACLU of California, examines the plight of deported veterans.
The report features a number of veterans who were in the U.S. legally and sustained physical wounds and emotional trauma in conflicts as far back as the war in Vietnam. Once they returned from service, however, they were subject to draconian immigration laws that reclassified many minor offenses as deportable crimes and were effectively banished from this country.
The report also provides key recommendations, including:
- Restoring judicial discretion to allow judges to consider factors such as military service in cases involving deportation.
- Requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to adopt an agency-wide moratorium on and/or presumption against removal of any active-duty U.S. service member or honorably discharged veteran.
- Reopening those naturalization applications that were denied or abandoned because an individual was unable to follow through on the naturalization process as a result of their military service.
- Providing legal representation to active-duty U.S. service members and veterans who are in removal proceedings.
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