Break the law, suffer the consequences.
Hector Barajas was convicted of shooting at a vehicle in 2002, was deported back to Mexico, quickly snuck back into the U.S. was caught and deported again. He then started a support group for fellow veterans deported to Mexico, worked to get them health care — and, last year, earned a pardon from California Gov. Jerry Brown for his crime.
On Friday he’ll cross the border once again, arriving in San Diego, where he’ll be sworn in as a U.S. citizen.
To his backers, it’s a long-overdue recognition for a man who devoted years of his life to his adopted country, made bad decisions but has has since gotten his life together and deserves the right to join American society.
They are hoping he’s blazed a path other people — and particularly veterans — might be able to follow, winning pardons to halt their deportations or even earn the right to come back.
“Hector’s case is in many ways a classic example how draconian our immigration laws have become,” said Bardis Vakili, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego, which went to court to force the citizenship issue earlier this year. “The same unforgiving deportation machine that routinely sweeps up hard-working immigrants simply seeking a better life has also forced countless veterans like Hector, who served this country honorably and risked their lives on its behalf, from their homeland.”
For Mr. Barajas, Friday is about a simple goal.
“It’s an opportunity to get back with my family and start my life over again,” he told The Washington Times by telephone from Mexico.
To critics, though, he’s the latest migrant to find a loophole in the immigration system, claiming a questionable pardon in order to circumvent the usual penalties.
“It seems a travesty to be granting pardons to violent foreign criminals, merely because they spent time in our armed forces. Especially in light of the fact that most of them remain subject to deportation specifically because they failed to seek U.S. citizenship,” said Matthew J. O’Brien, a former immigration official who’s now director of research at the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Pardons are quickly becoming a tool for anti-Trump governors.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued pardons to 18 immigrants last year in a bid to expunge crimes that left them vulnerable to deportation. Mr. Brown issued five pardons this March to immigrants in similar circumstances. Both men said they made sure those receiving the pardons had a number of years of good behavior under their belts since their crimes.
President Trump, who apparently saw reports of Mr. Brown’s pardons this year on Fox News, seized on the situation, pointing out their crimes included kidnapping, robbery, drug trafficking and spousal abuse.
“Is this really what the great people of California want?” he said on Twitter.
Activists, though, say once legal immigrants have served the time for their crimes, that should be the end of it. Deportation means they’re being punished beyond what others would face.
That’s the case for Mr. Barajas, who came to the U.S. as a boy. He joined the Army as a legal permanent resident.
He could have applied for citizenship, but says it just wasn’t a high priority at the time. In court papers, he claims he had been led to believe he was automatically a citizen by dint of his service — a common belief among green card holders in uniform.
He got an honorable discharge from the military in 2001, but his problems soon began.
He notched a DUI conviction in 2001, then in 2002 was driving with friends while high on crack when one of them shot at another car. “It wasn’t me,” he says — but facing charges of attempted murder, he instead pleaded no contest to shooting at an occupied vehicle. He served more than a year in prison.
Mr. Barajas was deported in 2004, but snuck back in months later. He was nabbed and deported again in 2010, after he got into a fender bender and was caught driving without a license.