WIDOWER OF SOLDIER KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN RETURNS HOME

By Gabo Ortiz

Daily Kos Staff

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has backtracked on a decision to deport the husband of a U.S. soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. 

Jose Gonzalez Carranza, who has no criminal record, had been arrested on April 8 and sent to Mexico, leaving the couple’s 12-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, here. Facing public backlash, ICE returned Gonzalez Carranza to the U.S. on Monday.

There’s no reason ICE targeted Jose Gonzalez Carranza other than apparent callousness. 

When his wife, Army Pfc. Barbara Vieyra, was killed at just 22 in 2010, Gonzalez Carranza was given permission to stay here under “parole in place,” after coming to the U.S. in 2004. Attorney Ezequiel Hernandez told the Arizona Republic that ”an immigration judge then terminated deportation proceedings against Gonzalez Carranza based on the parole in place,” but then “ICE refiled the case in 2018.”

Gonzalez Carranza missed the subsequent court hearing because he says he never got notice of it—“he said ICE sent it to the wrong address”—which then led to an immigration judge ordering his deportation. 

He was arrested by federal immigration agents as he was leaving for work. Hernandez said he filed a motion to reopen Gonzalez Carranza's deportation case. The motion triggered an automatic stay of removal, but ICE deported him anyway, Hernandez said.

Gonzalez Carranza had been staying at a shelter in Mexico for deported U.S. military veterans — yes, our nation has a dark history of departing immigrant veterans who served their country — as his daughter Evelyn stayed with her grandparents, who have joint custody of her, in Phoenix. 

"I feel so bad," Gonzalez Carranza said at the time from Nogales, Mexico. "I'm thinking about, I might never see her again."

But following a media push from Hernandez and subsequent public outrage, ICE quickly reversed on its decision, returning Gonzalez Carranza home this week. I

ICE officials offered no explanation for the decision to allow Gonzalez Carranza to return to the U.S. But Hernandez believes the reversal was triggered by media attention the deportation received.

” You know it was a bad decision when even ICE feels ashamed."

He said the decision to return Gonzalez Carranza to the U.S. was the right decision, but he should never have been targeted in the first place. ICE didn’t have to do this, but it chose to. 

“It’s the height of cruelty for ICE to deport the father of a child whose mother died while serving in the U.S. army in Afghanistan," the American Civil Liberties Union’s Cecilia Wang said. 

"The government can exercise its discretion not to pursue deportation against the sole remaining parent of a U.S. citizen child under these circumstances."