An Iraq War veteran who has not been to El Salvador since he was 3 years old was deported overnight.
Marine veteran Jose Segovia Benitez, 38, whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been holding for almost two years, has been in the national spotlight after he was suddenly yanked off a plane that was meant to return him to El Salvador last week.
His attorney, Roy Petty, told the Phoenix New Times that he found out about Segovia’s deportation when he showed up Wednesday to the Arizona ICE facility where Segovia was being held for a planned meeting, and he wasn’t there.
Segovia, who was in the military for five years and served two tours in Iraq, had a number of advocacy groups supporting his plea to stay in the United States. The California resident had served time in prison for several felonies, including domestic abuse, spurring ICE to detain him in January 2018.
But Segovia’s family and supporters say that after he returned from Iraq with a traumatic brain injury from an IED blast, he turned to substance abuse, got into legal trouble, and never got the help he needed.
Repatriate our Patriots sent a 522-page packet to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom asking that he pardon Segovia of his crimes in order to keep him in the country.
Supporters of Segovia were hoping for the pardon when he was deported.
“Certainly, this is a surprise,” Petty said. “ICE kept his deportation a secret. They kept it a secret from him, me, his other attorney, and they kept it a secret from his mother. It’s not common practice. Generally, what ICE will do is they will notify the person so the person can make arrangements. They woke him up and put him on a plane.”
Segovia’s mother, Marta Garcia, said she was worried about her son’s safety in El Salvador because he has been away since he was just a child. She is also concerned that he could be a target for violent gangs given that he speaks English and has large patriotic American tattoos, including the Statue of Liberty.
“Gangs target former U.S. military,” Petty said. “They’ll kidnap a person, they may hold a person for ransom, they may torture an individual.”
Segovia reportedly appealed this week’s deportation with the Board of Immigration Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, both of which denied his requests to stay in America.
Petty said he still hopes Newsom will grant a pardon and explained that he has a paralegal in El Salvador who will meet with Segovia and help him fill out the paperwork needed to continue the case.
“We certainly hope that ICE will correct this problem and allow him to come back to fight his case,” Petty said.
“What would certainly be horrible would be if he were kidnapped or killed in El Salvador before that,” he added.
