Serving in the military can help immigrants gain U.S. citizenship. But vets who commit crimes may find themselves deported despite their service to the country. Latino USA speaks with a vet awaiting deportation and with filmmaker John Valadez, currently working on a documentary highlighting the cases of veterans who have been deported.
Photo courtesy Flickr
John Valadez is an award-winning director who has been producing documentaries for PBS for the last X years. He has been a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, A Rockefeller Fellow and is a founding member of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. He has worked on projects for Carleton UK Television, Frontline, American Masters, CBC, TLC and HBO.
Craig Shagin is a lawyer in private practice in Pennsylvania, where egis firm is active in immigration law. He is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He has authored numerous articles and books on various aspects of immigration law, including “Deporting Private Ryan: The Less Than Honorable Condition of the Non-Citizen in the United States Armed Forces.”
I am in the Dominican Republic and know a few vets that are deported after honorable service and after PTSD tossing them into a drug use habit and the subsequent commission of drug crimes fueled by the same PTSD that took its genesis from the subject serving the United States honorably. My phone number is 829-267-5125. I here work on reopening deported persons’ cases. I became a paralegal while in prison and have been very effective in pro se litigations, including the case of a Mexican man who had served 130 months for illegal re-entry and I was able to prove to them that he was always a U.S. citizeen since the day he was born.