Civil and Immigrants’ Rights Organizations Urge Federal Clemency for Military Veterans Vulnerable to Deportation
WASHINGTON — Organizations representing noncitizen military veterans whose federal criminal convictions make them vulnerable to deportation are urging President Biden to use his pardon power to ensure people who have served our nation are not exiled from the only country they have ever known as home.
In a letter sent to Elizabeth Oyer, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, the American Civil Liberties Union, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and partners highlight the critical service noncitizen veterans have provided to our country for centuries, the immigration consequences of criminal convictions for noncitizen veterans, and how presidential pardons will keep families together.
“Many veterans face challenges reintegrating into civilian life after military service and wind up entangled in the criminal legal system. But instead of being provided rehabilitation and care — many return home with physical injuries or mental health diagnoses — noncitizen veterans face a second punishment for their criminal conviction: permanent removal from the nation they swore to protect. This is cruel and unjust, but with the stroke of a pen, President Biden can make sure these people can remain in the country they call home,” said Jennie Pasquarella, immigrants’ rights director at the ACLU of Southern California.
have been arrested or jailed at least once, often for crimes stemming directly from traumatic experiences related to their military service. For noncitizen veterans, many criminal convictions — including for nonviolent and misdemeanor crimes — can result in the mandatory deportation for lawful permanent residents and lifetime bars to reentry and naturalization. For the vast majority of noncitizen veterans who came to the country as small children, deportation means being sent to a country where they may have never visited, have no family or support system, and may not even know the language.
Jose Francisco Lopez, for example, is a 79-year-old veteran who immigrated to the United States as a child with his family to Wichita Falls, Texas. When he was 23 years old, he was drafted and served honorably in the Vietnam War, earning the Vietnam Service Medal with four bronze service stars. Like many veterans who experience the trauma of war, he returned to civilian life facing addiction and was eventually arrested for a drug related crime in 1994. He was rehabilitated in prison, but was deported to Mexico in 2003 following his release, separating him from his five U.S.-citizen children.
Under the Biden administration’s Immigrant Military Members and Veterans Initiative (IMMVI), Lopez was repatriated to the United States in 2023. More than 85 others have been returned to the U.S. under the initiative. The White House invited Lopez to a Nov. 11, 2023 Veterans Day event with President Biden, and a federal pardon would make Lopez eligible to naturalize based on his military service.
“All I want now is to be buried on U.S. soil as an American citizen. The person I was 30 years ago is not the person I am now. That person was addicted to drugs to cope with the trauma of Vietnam; the person I am today has been sober for decades and is devoted to serving veterans in need. I ask only for forgiveness from President Biden, so that I may live my remaining days as a U.S. citizen,” said Jose Francisco Lopez, who founded and runs the Deported Veterans Support House in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The letter urges the Biden administration to adopt a process for pardoning noncitizen veterans, including people repatriated to the U.S. under the IMMVI and others facing removal or barriers to naturalization due to a federal conviction. “For these individuals, deportation — permanent banishment from the United States — is a uniquely harsh and disproportionately unjust outcome that can and should be waived through the President’s pardon authority, as Congress intended,” the letter reads.
“Clemency is a powerful tool to correct injustices - it can offer people second chances and their freedom, but it can also do so much more. It can provide justice for people who have served in our military and have since been deported. Our Constitution gives the president clear authority to forgive past and current offenses, and President Biden must remedy this injustice now,” said Tara Stutsman, senior campaign strategist with the ACLU’s Redemption Campaign.
“Congress intended executive pardons to be the safety valve to prevent unjust deportations otherwise mandated by our immigration laws. Veterans, whether citizens or noncitizens, should reunite with their families and communities upon completion of their service–not permanently banished from all they know and love. President Biden can and should correct this injustice by pardoning these veterans, so that they may remain permanently in the United States with their families,” said Amanda Schuft, legal services director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
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NEW YORK – New documents obtained by the ACLU reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is actively considering proposals to expand its immigration detention capacity in at least six states across the country, including in California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington state. The records, obtained as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the ACLU in September 2024, disclose that private prison corporations, as well as other corporate entities that provide services to build temporary facilities, monitor compliance, and staff facilities submitted proposals for expanded immigration detention in response to ICE’s contract requests. The discovery comes just weeks after the ACLU received its first tranche of FOIA documents revealing that ICE is considering expanding detention in three different facilities in New Jersey. “You cannot have mass deportations without a significant expansion of ICE detention capacity in states across the country and that’s exactly what the incoming Trump administration is preparing to do,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “Rather than permanently shutting down abusive detention facilities, the Biden administration is paving the way for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his cruel and inhumane mass deportation proposals.” The FOIA documents reveal that GEO Group, Inc., CoreCivic, and the Management & Training Corporation (MTC) submitted contract proposals to Requests for Information (RFI) to expand detention capacity and facilities, several of which have a lengthy history of abusive conditions. The proposals for expanded immigration detention facilities include: Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, KS – formerly known as Leavenworth Detention Center – which has a track record of abusive conditions, which led the federal government to end its contract with the facility in 2021. South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, TX – a facility where children as young as 19 months have died as a result poor medical care. Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, NV – which has been subject to a federal invesitgation for medical negligence, racial discrimination, and verbal abuse of detained people. Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, NM — which has been the site of numerous deaths in recent years, with incidents of neglect, abuse, and lack of medical care. Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, NM – which Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General cited in 2022 due to poor conditions. California City Correctional Center in California City, CA – which was previously used as a California Department of Corrections prison until March 2024. ICE also withheld a number of documents in its FOIA disclosure, obscuring the names of the specific facilities. However, the documents produced indicate that the following detention facilities are likely under consideration by ICE: Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs, NM (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the El Paso Field Office) Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, WA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the Seattle Field Office) Golden State Annex in McFarland, CA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the San Francisco Field Office) Mesa Verde Detention Center in Bakersfield, CA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the San Francisco Field Office) MTC facility in South Texas, which may include the Willacy County Jail in Raymondville, TX (Proposal by MTC for the Harlingen Field Office) GEO Group, Inc. facility in IL, IN, WI, MI, KT, or KS (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for Chicago Field Office) GEO Group, Inc. facility in South Texas, which may include the Brooks County Detention Center, Falfurrias, TX; Coastal Bend Detention Center, Robstown, TX; or the East Hidalgo Detention Center in LaVilla, TX (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. For the Harlingen Field Office) Other corporate entities, including Kastel Enterprises, LLC., and Active Deployment Systems, which provide services to build temporary facilities, and Sabot Consulting, which provides compliance monitoring and detention staffing services, also submitted responses to ICE’s request. As the ACLU has previously documented, the federal government’s immigration detention system overwhelmingly relies on private prison corporations. Private prison corporations, like the GEO Group, CoreCivic, LaSalle Corrections, and the Management & Training Corporation have pocketed billions from ICE detention contracts over the past two decades. The FOIA records are available here: /documents/multi-state-detention-facility-support-foia-documents-request-for-information -
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Immigrants' Rights
ACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals New Information Regarding ICE’s Plans to Expand Immigration Detention in New JerseyACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals New Information Regarding ICE’s Plans to Expand Immigration Detention in New Jersey
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