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A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. “That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.”
Park’s remarks to NPR and the Hawaii news station KITV vividly illustrate the effects that Donald Trump’s immigration policies can have on those who came to the US from abroad and obtained so-called green cards. His experience also highlights the challenges that noncitizens can face if they are ensnared by legal problems after serving the US military.
As the 55-year-old Park put it, he was brought to the US from South Korea at age seven and enlisted in the army after high school. He later participated in the US’s invasion of Panama in 1989 that toppled the regime of General Manuel Noriega – who was wanted by American authorities on accusations of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.
During what was codenamed Operation Just Cause, Park was shot in the back during an exchange of gunfire with Panamanian troops. He flew back to the US, accepted the Purple Heart decoration given to US military members who are hurt or wounded in combat, secured an honorable discharge from the army and began physically recovering.
But he had difficulty grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder from being shot, and he became addicted to the illicit drug crack cocaine as he tried to cope, he recounted to NPR.
Park spent a few years in prison beginning in 2009 after police in New York arrested him while he tried to buy crack from a dealer one night, he said. At one point, Park skipped a court hearing related to his arrest knowing he would fail a required drug test. That doomed his chances of converting his legal residency into full US citizenship, which the government offers to military veterans who arrive to the country from abroad and serve honorably.
A judge ordered Park’s removal from the US, though he was allowed to remain in the country on the condition that he checked in annually with immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) agents. That arrangement is typically offered to people whose removals are not considered a priority, and Park took advantage of the opportunity to settle in Hawaii while raising a son and daughter.
Then earlier in June, as NPR noted, Ice officials under the Trump administration’s direction warned him that he would be detained and deported from the US unless he left voluntarily in the coming weeks. He chose to bid farewell to his friends, children and mother, who is aged 85 and battling the early stages of dementia.
Park told KITV he realized he may never see any of his loved ones again as he prepared to fly out of Honolulu’s Daniel K Inoueye international.
“She kind of doesn’t know really what’s going on,” Park said at an airport named after a congressional Medal of Honor recipient who fought for the army in the second world war alongside Japanese American soldiers whose relatives had been incarcerated in US internment camps at the time.
“I won’t be there for a funeral, like my daughter getting married – just, there’s a lot of things connected with it. I definitely know that.”
The Trump administration has been unapologetic about its immigration policies. And on Wednesday, the assistant homeland security department secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, issued a statement saying Park’s history “includes convictions for possession, manufacturing or selling a dangerous weapon, carrying a loaded firearm in a public place, assault and criminal possession of a controlled substance”.
McLaughlin’s statement didn’t elaborate on Park’s record – but it also also said his prior, adjudicated removal order deprived him of the “legal basis to remain in the US”.
“If you come to our country and break our laws, we will find you, arrest you and deport you,” McLaughlin’s statement said. “That’s a promise.”
Park told KITV and NPR that he considered himself fortunate to have been able to be a US soldier and control how he left the country. But he also maintained his treatment at the hands of Ice was “so unfair”.
“I was in disbelief until the last minute – but reality is hitting real hard,” Park said to the Hawaii outlet. “And I really can’t believe this is happening.”
