Troops Worry Relatives Could Be Deported

Troops Worry Relatives Could Be Deported
JULIANA BARBASSA | August 10, 2007 06:38 PM EST


Yaderlin Jimenez was an illegal immigrant facing deportation. Her husband, a U.S. citizen and soldier, couldn't help her because he was missing after an insurgent attack in Iraq.

The military has not been able to find Army Spc. Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., after he was apparently snatched in May during a raid on his unit south of Baghdad. His capture drew national attention to his wife's deportation case, prompting Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to ask immigration officials to halt the proceedings.

Jimenez's wife then became a legal resident, but the couple's plight put a public face on the private anguish of a growing number of military families in similar straits.

About 35,000 legal immigrants without citizenship are now serving in the military, and nearly 34,000 other service members have taken the citizenship oath since 2001. That means when immigrant soldiers ship off to Iraq, they may carry with them a worry their American-born counterparts are less likely to share: that their family members might be deported while they are away.


"Every base has immigration problems," said Margaret Stock, an Army reservist and immigration attorney teaching at United States Military Academy at West Point. "The government they're fighting for is the same government that's trying to deport their families."

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Eduardo Gonzalez is a citizen whose wife entered the country illegally from Guatemala when she was 5 years old. Now a young adult, she is in deportation proceedings.


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to me. Afterall, the servive people who signed up to serve are at great risk for being killed. They certainly do not need the stress of worrying about their families. It is the least Uncle Sam can do for them.

these "people" have no right to be here. he must have thought because he was fighting for our freedom that we would let his illegal wife to stay in the usa. simple? yes it`s simple to put her on a bus and dump her over the fence....




really why is this an issue? the guy must have paid the price for this country and his wife,no matter her status, is`t welcome here?

the lady in the harbor hangs her head in shame

me that Bu$hCo is deliberately letting that happen to spite people for not passing the shitty so called immigration reform bill HE favored. Its easy enough to fix that for those family members, but Bu$hCo being the a**holes they are, they probably won't so they can have one more thing to exploit for their political gain. IMO, there is NO excuse for not fixing that problem before they sent them to Iraq.

Much of politics is what overly simplistic "face" can be put on a complex issue.