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

by J. Malcolm Garcia

Overview

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?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510722439
Publisher:	Hot Books
Publication date:	09/26/2017
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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 Best American Travel Writing, Best American Essays, and Best American Nonrequired Reading.

Table of Contents

Prologue xv

Time Served 1

Now I'm Not a Hero 57

Move to Survive 83

Burial Rites 129

After Ashley 163

Coming Home I 191

Coming Home II 209

Epilogue 215

Acknowledgements 221

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Timely and compelling, Garcia writes with great empathy, and forces us to consider the most relevant question of our time: what kind of country do we want to be? A nation that cares for our war veterans, or one that deports them into the unknown? This book is utterly of the moment, and captures our country's zeitgeist perfectly."—Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows and All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer

"A textured, wide-ranging, and often moving investigation into the moral questions raised by the little-understood nexus between immigration policy and veterans affairs."—Alexander Zaitchik, author of The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump’s America

Editorial Reviews

07/10/2017
In this searing exposé, journalist Garcia (What Wars Leave Behind) tells the stories of noncitizen U.S. military veterans deported by the very country for which they were willing to lay down their lives. Speaking to the veterans themselves and to their families, Garcia illustrates the injustice in human terms. There’s Neuris Feliz, born in the Dominican Republic and sent to Iraq as a member of the National Guard in 2004, who drank heavily after his return to escape his memories of combat and, after being arrested for assault, was eventually deported. Then there is Manuel De Jesus Castano, an Army vet who died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in his native Mexico. Story after story makes it plain that the U.S. immigration system has little mercy for people made doubly vulnerable by their lack of citizenship and the often grisly tours of duty they served. Though there are occasional bright spots, these are few and far between. “Only a cognitive disconnect could allow us to put people in uniform and not treat them as our own,” the author declares. Few readers will disagree by the book’s end. Garcia’s timely work of reportage shines a light on the harsh treatment being shown to a group of American servicepeople. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for J. Malcolm Garcia:

"J. Malcolm Garcia is the keeper of forgotten stories. He is an invaluable witness and a compassionate observer of today's wars."—Fatima Bhutto, author of Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir

"I don't know if he's unheralded, but there's a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy. He writes powerful and lyrical nonfiction from Afghanistan, from Buenos Aires, from Mississippi, all of it urgent and provocative. I've been following him wherever he goes."—Dave Eggers

“Garcia is an exceptionally powerful voice on behalf of the people about whom he writes. As he illustrates the results of America’s military adventuring, Garcia not only takes us to the physical space of the people who are the victims of our drone attacks, our bombs, and our bullets, but he also goes where few nonfiction writers have the skill to venture—he takes us inside their heads.”—Dale Maharidge, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

"Timely and compelling, Garcia writes with great empathy, and forces us to consider the most relevant question of our time: what kind of country do we want to be? A nation that cares for our war veterans, or one that deports them into the unknown? This book is utterly of the moment, and captures our country's zeitgeist perfectly."—Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows and All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer "A textured, wide-ranging, and often moving investigation into the moral questions raised by the little-understood nexus between immigration policy and veterans affairs."—Alexander Zaitchik, author of The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump’s America

Praise for J. Malcolm Garcia:

"J. Malcolm Garcia is the keeper of forgotten stories. He is an invaluable witness and a compassionate observer of today's wars."—Fatima Bhutto, author of Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir

"I don't know if he's unheralded, but there's a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy. He writes powerful and lyrical nonfiction from Afghanistan, from Buenos Aires, from Mississippi, all of it urgent and provocative. I've been following him wherever he goes."—Dave Eggers

“Garcia is an exceptionally powerful voice on behalf of the people about whom he writes. As he illustrates the results of America’s military adventuring, Garcia not only takes us to the physical space of the people who are the victims of our drone attacks, our bombs, and our bullets, but he also goes where few nonfiction writers have the skill to venture—he takes us inside their heads.”—Dale Maharidge, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

From the Publisher

2017-06-20
The sagas of noncitizens who managed to enlist in the U.S. military and serve in uniform but nonetheless ended up deported to their countries of birth because they were charged with crimes.Studs Terkel Prize winner Garcia (What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and the Forgotten, 2014) had logically assumed that all members of the military qualified as U.S. citizens and therefore could never be deported to places such as Mexico or the Dominican Republic. But when the author began investigating a story about homeless veterans scattered throughout the country, he learned from a social worker about discharged veterans being deported by the American government. Garcia began his research in Tijuana, Mexico, following Hector Barajas-Varela, an Army veteran who created a gathering place nicknamed the Bunker about a decade ago after U.S. authorities deported him to Mexico due to crimes committed on American soil. Throughout the book, Garcia expresses outrage about the deportations of veterans. The outrage is leavened, however, by his openly stated ambivalence about the crimes committed by the deported veterans, which often caused pain to innocent parties. The author does emphasize that those veterans who served prison time in the U.S. should not be doubly punished via deportation. Garcia makes himself a character in the book, narrating first-person accounts of his travels to locate the veterans in Mexico and other locales outside the U.S. Unfortunately, the author relates the details of the case studies in prose that is often rambling and filled with irrelevant details. In addition, the structure of the book is so loose that the narrative throughline sometimes gets lost. Despite the mediocre presentation, Garcia documents an underreported phenomenon that is likely to upset readers who believe honorable service in the U.S. military should be rewarded with citizenship.

Kirkus Reviews

Read More