Marine Vet Who Served in Iraq Deported to El Salvador

In a previous article I mentioned that this Marine was facing deportation. Now it has actually happened. Yesterday he was deported to El Salvador, a country he has no memory of. 

I have received emails which said that the only reason I was supporting this young man was that he was an immigrant. This is totally false. This is only one of thousands of incidents where our government has simply discarded “used” soldiers. There are many thousands of veterans who are now living on our streets as homeless people. In this case the government had an “excuse” to simply deport him and make him someone else’s problem. 

What is different here is that in El Salvador there are gangs that target former US soldiers for murder. Since he has brain damage, he probably does not know how to defend himself or even that he is in danger. 

Our neglect of veterans is, unfortunately, nothing new. There are still a few remaining Viet Nam veterans who are still trying to get relief from their exposure to agent orange. 

Apparently DHS and ICE were trying to conceal their activities as they failed to inform his lawyer or family as is the regular procedure. 

Aris Folley 15 hrs ago

Marine Corps Marine Corps vet who served in Iraq deported to El Salvador

Segovia-Benitez’s attorney Roy Petty told the Phoenix New Times that he didn’t find out Segovia-Benitez had been deported until after he arrived for a planned meeting with his client at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Arizona where he was being held.

“Certainly, this is a surprise,” he told the paper Wednesday. “ICE kept his deportation a secret. They kept it a secret from him, me, his other attorney, and they kept it a secret from his mother. It’s not common practice.”
“Generally, what ICE will do is they will notify the person so the person can make arrangements. They woke him up and put him on a plane,” he continued.
An ICE spokeswoman confirmed Segovia-Benitez’s deportation in a statement to The Hill on Wednesday.
“Mr. Segovia-Benitez was removed to his home country Oct. 23 in accordance with federal law and the policies and procedures of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” she said.
She also noted that shortly after an immigration judge ordered Segovia-Benitez’s removal, he “subsequently appealed his case with the Board of Immigration Appeals, which denied the appeal.”
“He also filed two stay requests with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both of which were denied,” she added.
The report is the latest update in a high-profile deportation case that has garnered widespread attention in recent weeks.
Segovia-Benitez served two tours in Iraq before he was honorably discharged in 2004, a year after he suffered a brain injury. The veteran also received a number of decorations for his service during his time in the military, according to NBC News.
But after he was discharged from the military, Segovia-Benitez began to self-medicate with alcohol, his family said, which led to trouble with authorities. He ended up serving time in prison for a variety of crimes, including assault with a deadly weapon and injuring a spouse, for which he received an eight-year prison sentence.
Segovia-Benitez’s family members have said that while they do not condone his criminal actions, they believe the government failed to provide adequate care for him after he was discharged.
Brandee Dudzic, executive director of the group Repatriate our Patriots, told ABC News that Segovia-Benitez wasn’t diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder until 2011, seven years after he was discharged from the military.
His lawyer told the Phoenix New Times that his team is still working on his case and hopes “that ICE will correct this problem and allow him to come back to fight his case.”
“What would certainly be horrible would be if he were kidnapped or killed in El Salvador before that,” Petty said while expressing concern that Segovia-Benitez, who doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, could be targeted in El Salvador.
“Gangs target former U.S. military,” he told the paper. “They’ll kidnap a person, they may hold a person for ransom, they may torture an individual.”

dhs

Michael Chester

Michael Chester is retired from his career in industrial technology. After graduating from college, he taught this subject until deciding that he preferred doing the job himself more than teaching it. At various times during his career, he has designed, built, installed, and repaired industrial manufacturing machinery. His specialty was in electrical and electronic controls.

After retiring, he concentrated more on his hobby of cooking and attended one of the top culinary schools in the US. Mike competed in bass fishing tournaments for several years but had to leave the sport due to an injury. As a certified barbecue judge, he gets to taste some of the best BBQs in the country and help select the winner. It is a tough job, but someone has to do it. He lives with his wife of over 30 years, and has 3 adult children and 2 grandchildren.