the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Feb 5, 2018
Miguel Perez, Jr. served two tours in Afghanistan. He came back to his home in Chicago with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was supposed to go back to the doctor to find out if he had a traumatic brain injury–but he never made it. After self-medicating like many vets with alcohol and drugs, he was caught handing cocaine to an undercover cop, and spent seven years in prison.
Now, the government wants to deport Perez. He has lived in this country since he was eight years old, and he is here legally, with a green card and two U.S.-born children. But he is not a citizen, despite his military service. So he is subject to deportation because he committed a crime.
The politicians love to use the veterans as symbols, to try to get the U.S. population to support its wars in the name of supporting the troops. But in reality, the wars the U.S. fights chew up many of these soldiers, physically and mentally. And once they’re chewed up, they get thrown out–in Perez’s case, literally.