BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — He put on the uniform and served his country. But years later, that same country deported him. That's the case of former Marine Jason Madrid.
In the 1990s, he deployed to Iraq during Operation Desert Fox. But when he returned to California, the battle didn't end. Madrid says he came home a changed man.
"I suffer from PTSD, anxiety, depression; I suffer from all that," Madrid said.
Madrid says PTSD took hold. His life spiraled, and he was convicted of an aggravated felony. He served six months in jail. But on the day he expected to walk free, his life took another devastating turn. ICE agents showed up.
"I didn't know who they were. He said, 'You're getting deported.' I'm like, you know, what do you mean, getting deported? He goes, 'You're going back to your country.' And I said to myself, I am in my country. He's like, 'No, you're going back to the country you were born in.' So I told him, You're sending me to a country that I'm unfamiliar with and never been to. He's like, 'Yes,' Madrid said.
He was taken into immigration custody and held in a detention center for two years. Then came deportation, sending him to a place he says felt foreign: Tijuana.
"It was kind of sad and kind of hard because when you get deported to a country you don't know, like, what do you do?" Madrid said.
In Tijuana, other deported veterans took Madrid in and helped him start over. He worked any job he could find, eventually putting on another uniform, this time as a Tijuana police officer for nearly eight years.
"It was a higher-paying job. So I took advantage of that; I applied. I got the job, so I became a police officer," Madrid said.
Madrid admits he made a life-altering assumption. As a legal permanent resident serving in the U.S. military, he believed he had no reason to apply for citizenship.
"Never my in my mind I thought, which recruiters don't tell you I thought that once you join the military you're automatically a citizen, but what the military never tells you is that when you join the military you have to apply to become a citizen," Madrid said.
Under immigration law, a non-citizen convicted of an aggravated felony, or even a misdemeanor, is grounds for deportation. There are an untold number of veterans, Madrid says, who become addicts in a foreign land. For some, he says, the consequences have been deadly.
"I've seen a lot of, a lot of veterans not make it. And the only way they make it back to the United States is in a coffin. And a lot of them are still fighting to come back. It's a sad story," Madrid said.
And on a day meant to honor service and sacrifice, the 53-year-old Madrid says Veterans Day now carries a painful meaning.
"Me, myself, I don't feel anything. I don't feel. People can say, you know, thank you for your service, whatever, you know, they had their parade. They celebrate. I don't celebrate. Because of the deported veterans that are still suffering out there, trying to get back," Madrid said.
The 53-year-old made it back to the U.S. in 2023 after 13 years of deportation.
For Madrid, the mission isn't on a battlefield now. It's a fight to bring deported veterans back to the country they once put on a uniform to defend.
"I just hope one day that the congressmen and the senators, you know, get a change of heart and bring back our veterans. You know, I really do," Madrid said.
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