“Over the past couple of years, stories of non-citizen veterans being deported have made major headlines. As it turns out, there is a process in place that provides extra consideration for those immigration cases, but federal officials haven’t been following it.”
“It’s an issue that’s affected at least hundreds of veterans, but the full extent is unknown because of a lack of record keeping, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office.”
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement not only doesn’t adhere to the policy requiring a service record review before deporting these veterans, they also don’t track how many of them are caught by federal agents or ultimately deported, according to the report…”
“The GAO’s recommendations focused mostly on following policies ICE already has, including to ensure consistent application of them and to create a new policy requiring officials to specifically ask about military service in interviews.”
“There was also a recommendation to input that data into electronic databases, to more easily track veterans subject to deportation or who have already left.” Read the full article here.
Source: ICE is supposed to consider service when deporting veterans. It hasn’t been. – By Meghann Myers, June 12, 2019. Military Times.
