Without a Country: The Untold Story of America's Deported Veterans

By J. Malcolm Garcia

Many Americans believe service in the military to be a quintessential way to demonstrate patriotism. We expect those who serve to be treated with respect and dignity. However, as in so many aspects of our politics, the reality and our ideals diverge widely in our treatment of veterans. There is perhaps no starker example of this than the continued practice of deporting men and women who have served.

J. Malcolm Garcia has travelled across the country and abroad to interview veterans who have been deported, as well as the families and friends they have left behind, giving the full scope of the tragedy to be found in this all too common practice. Without a Country analyzes the political climate that has led us here and takes a hard look at the toll deportation has taken on American vets and their communities.

Deported veterans share in and reflect the diversity of America itself. The numerous compounding injustices meted out to them reflect many of the still unresolved contradictions of our nation and its ideals. But this story, in all its grit and complexity, really boils down to an old, simple question: Who is a real American?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hot Books
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781510722446

J. Malcolm Garcia

J. Malcolm Garcia is a freelance journalist and the author of The Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul and What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and the Forgotten. He is a recipient of the Studs Terkel Prize for writing about the working classes and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing, The Best American Essays, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Reviews for Without a Country

[davidwineberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Since 1996, the USA has been deporting armed forces veterans who did not have citizenship, but did have a criminal conviction. Though entitled to Veterans Affairs medical benefits (but unable to take advantage of them), they lost all social security benefits and forfeited their lifetime contributions. Many came to the USA as infants and never knew their green cards did not make them citizens. And the armed forces apparently did nothing to regularize their status when they signed up. Many joined the forces simply for a better education they could not afford on their own. Instead, they found themselves in a foreign country, with a life sentence to stay away from the USA. They are worse than terrorists; they are veterans.Like hundreds of thousands of other vets, they came back from overseas duty, shaken. They took to drink, drugs and divorce. They couldn’t hold jobs, suffered from PTSD and had money problems. For immigrants however, an aggravated felony could mean deportation to a country they did not know. This followed whatever sentence they got, a nice double jeopardy for wrecking their lives for their country. Without A Country is the story of a number of these men, bored to death in Mexico or the Dominican Republic.As usual with these laws, no one can see what purpose they serve. They break up families and ruin lives. In the case of veterans, they make a farce of the very principles they fought for. Veterans need help, not expulsion. Deportation is an absurd response to their situations.For all this drama, the book is remarkably flat. It is simply the individual frustrating stories, tied together in chapters. It is one-sided and incomplete. Garcia never spoke to anyone at Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Justice or even the Marine Corps, where most of his victims served. He gives us no feel for the number of veteran victims, or whether it is rising or falling. He never talked to a congressman or senator who disagreed with the law. Or a crusading lawyer. At the end of the book, the ACLU comes through with an angle that allows some of the men a fast track to citizenship, so it ends on a positive note. But Garcia never spoke to the ACLU, either. So while the issue is in-your-face dramatic and newsworthy, Without A Country doesn’t give it its due.David Wineberg