Just a week after a Purple Heart recipient was deported from an immigration detention center in Florence, veterans and advocates gathered at the Arizona Capitol to condemn the removal of immigrant service members under President Donald Trump.
Michelle Byrd, who spent two decades in the U.S. Air Force and was deployed six times, criticized the deportations of veterans as disrespectful.
“That’s just the ultimate slap in the face, and we should be ashamed of ourselves for letting it happen,” she said. “They defended this country. They raised their hand and they swore to uphold the Constitution, and then they come home and we say, ‘Oh, thanks for your service, get out.’ It’s wrong.”
In an effort to deliver on Trump’s mass deportation promise, immigration enforcement activity has surged, and noncitizen service members, who were previously afforded limited protections from detainment and removal, have been caught in the crosshairs.
The deportation of veterans has been an ongoing issue, though a spotlight on an increase of removals by the Trump administration has prompted vocal criticism. In 2021, Biden issued an executive order that resulted in the creation of the Immigrant Military Members and Veterans Initiative, which worked to prioritize the return of deported veterans and their families.
Signing up to join the military doesn’t require citizenship, just lawful permanent residency. During Joe Biden’s presidency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were directed to take a person’s military record into consideration before arresting them. But under Trump, that guidance was replaced in April with a memo emphasizing that, while it would still be considered, military service alone doesn’t “automatically exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”
It’s unclear how many foreign-born veterans have been deported since Trump took office. Some estimates project as many as 10,000 were expelled from the country between January and June, according to a letter sent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security by Democratic members of Congress.
At least two Iraq war veterans have been deported from Arizona. Marlon Parris, who was born in Trinidad but lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was arrested outside his Laveen home two days after Trump’s inauguration, despite previous assurances from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security that his nonviolent drug charge from 2011 wouldn’t result in his removal. He has since been deported to Mexico. And last week, José Barco, a Purple Heart recipient who was born in Venezuela to Cuban exiles, was deported to Mexico following 10 months in detention.
Advocates argue that immigrants who have served in the military should be exempted from deportation. Mike Olivas, a Vietnam war veteran who drove to the Capitol from Tucson, highlighted the sacrifice of military service as proof that immigrants who sign up for it deserve more.
“They should be at a different level,” he said. “I mean, they fought for their country. They did more than a lot of people did.”
Chris Hill, an organizing fellow with the progressive veterans group Common Defense, added that the government needs to improve its naturalization processes for military members. He noted that the current process puts too much of the burden on military members themselves, and he’s heard about several cases when a person’s citizenship application was waylaid by a deployment order that made them miss critical court appointments.
“We need to codify a practice within the Department of Defense that, if you’re an immigrant and you served your tour of service, that it’s incumbent on the Department of Defense to ensure that you go through that process and you become a citizen while you’re on active duty,” he said. “It’s a promise we made and it’s a promise we need to keep.”
While not a guarantee, military service offers an expedited pathway to citizenship. But the rate of naturalization lags far behind the share of veterans who are immigrants. In 2022, an estimated 16.2 million veterans were born in another country. That same year, only 10,690 military-based naturalizations were approved.
The rate of naturalization is further complicated by the heightened risk of criminal conviction among veterans. To be eligible for naturalization through military service, a person must demonstrate “good moral character” for at least five years before applying. One-third of veterans report being arrested, compared to just one-fifth of non-veterans, due in part to post-traumatic stress disorders, traumatic brain injuries or substance abuse. Barco, whose 2006 naturalization application was lost before it could get approved while he was on active duty, was convicted of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of menacing when he fired a handgun into a crowd of teenagers in Colorado two years later, just months after being discharged because of a worsening traumatic brain injury.
Hill argued that a criminal record shouldn’t be the sole determinant of when a foreign-born veteran should be expelled from the country.
“These are soldiers who deployed in very stressful situations, oftentimes were injured, oftentimes have traumatic brain injuries, oftentimes have PTSD and other symptoms,” he said. “To think that they can come back and make mistakes and pay their time, and then get deported? And get deported to a country they don’t know? It’s a tragedy, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
Barcos was sentenced to 52 years in prison when one of the bullets he fired struck 19-year-old Ginny Clemens, who was pregnant. He was ultimately released on Jan. 21 — the day after Trump became president for the second time — after serving 15 years. ICE agents detained him minutes after he walked out.
Jojo Sweatt, the national organizing director of Common Defense, called for the federal government to bring back deported veterans, saying that their military service makes the government responsible for them.
“We need to repatriate any veteran who has already been exiled and sent away, because they served this country,” she said. “No matter what their flaws are, or who they are as a human being, they are American because they swore that oath, they defended this country, and whatever happened to them after that service and spending time in war, it’s up to our country to take care of them.”
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X.
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