Deported Vets: Life in “The Bunker”
*Deported veterans – the idea itself is dissonant. This is how some of them live. VL
By Joanna S. Kao, Al Jazeera America
TIJUANA, Mexico — Hector Barajas carried suitcases, crates and trash bags filled with appliances, donated goods and clothes to the curb. He and a half dozen other men loaded up a silver Nissan pickup truck, tightly packing the items with the precision of gamers playing Tetris.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]No agency tracks the number of deported vets, but some immigration advocates estimate there are hundreds, if not thousands.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]The men were moving from their rented apartment in downtown Tijuana, a 500-square foot room nicknamed “the bunker,” to their new home in Otay Centenario, on the east side of the city. “Feels like taking down a base,” said Marco Rodriguez, a former U.S. Marine, as he packed.
At any given time, the bunker had housed between one and six people, most of them U.S. military veterans. Its founder and first resident, Barajas, who served in the Army from 1995 to 2001, used the apartment as his home, office and a shelter for other veterans.
[pullquote]Their stories are similar: Each was honorably discharged from the military, but was later charged with a deportable offense.[/pullquote]Barajas and the veterans staying with him are establishing a new life in Tijuana — a life after deportation. Their stories are similar: Each was honorably discharged from the military, but was later charged with a deportable offense — for example, drug possession, discharge of a firearm or perjury. In some cases, the veterans say, their offenses were triggered by the post-traumatic stress they developed after serving in combat. Most have spent the vast majority of their lives in the United States and are now starting over in a country they barely know.
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[Photo courtesy Al Jazeera America]
