Instead of the U.S. Army veteran being allowed to enter the United States for emergency medical treatment only his ashes were returned to the country which he had served.
In a busy section of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Banesa Moreno Navarrete stands on a sidewalk leading to the downtown general hospital.
The Juarez hospital had issued a letter, which the family provided to Homeland Security, that described the U.S. veteran’s health as being critical “with a high risk of death in the short term.” This bolstered the family’s hopes that the U.S. government would grant the emergency petition for their father.“I had everything set up to take him to El Paso. The ambulance in Juarez would bring him to the bridge, and the transport from the El Paso VA would be there. Everything was in place.
His family acknowledges the crimes Moreno committed—attempted murder and two drug convictions—but said he served his time. Moreno’s deportation, they added, was unrelated to his crimes. He was flagged only because he tried to get a U.S. passport and was unable to provide documentation proving he was legally in the country.
Repeated requests for comment sent to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by The Daily Beast were unanswered. In February 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to help more eligible deported veterans return to the U.S. But since then only 50 veterans have been granted re-entry into the country, according to a report this year by the Center for Public Integrity.
Zapata-Perez owns a small grocery store in Matehuala named Abarrotes El Charro—Groceries by the Mexican Cowboy—which stocks everything except alcohol, which he gave up as part of his hard-fought sobriety. “I came from el rancho, just a village, then my family came to the U.S. for the American dream, like everyone says,” he said.
“Send the chopper, and rescue me. They put me in a war zone with no ammo,” he said. “It’s a war zone after midnight. You can hear the gunshots, ‘bam bam bam.’ You can hear the cartel fireworks.” Former U.S. Navy serviceman Gerardo “Jerry” Zaragoza has lived in Juarez for the past 18 years. Now 43, he remembers his first entry into the United States as an 8-year-old child crossing on the shoulders of a “coyote”who carried him across the Rio Grande into the United States. The smuggler also pulled a plank strapped onto an inflated inner-tube that carried his mother and younger brother Luis.
After climbing off the makeshift raft onto the river bank, Santillan remembers that a distant U.S. Border Patrol land cruiser was speeding towards her and the group of other people crossing. Then he learned something that crushed his hopes: Only U.S. citizens could advance to the SEALs. Also weighing on him was rampant racism he said was coming from some of his commanding officers.
“I remember at the bridge saying ‘U.S. citizen’ and then the CBP guy said ‘show me your ID.’ Sure thing. Here you go,” Zaragoza recalls telling the border agent. “I actually forgot that my work permit had expired. Really, as far as I knew, I was a U.S. citizen. I had been in El Paso for so long.” While at a Juarez restaurant a few years back, he said he saw a group of men swarm inside so he quickly left. Hearing a series of shots behind him, turning back, he saw a man bloody and shot to death–“his face was in the damn soup,” he said.
In Tijuana, the huge Mexican city of more than two million across the border from San Diego, California, violence has racked up an average of more than 2,000 killings each year for the past three years. Last year cartels hijacked and torched more than a dozen vehicles in a series of escalating violent acts that forced the city to enact a curfew for its residents.
He enlisted at 18, and was among the first 100 Marines who landed on the ground for the Iraq War, where he provided security, worked with military police to escort people off the base, as well as guarding POWs. “I had nowhere to go, so I was living out of my car,” he said. Then, he sold drugs to an undercover officer, was arrested and jailed for a year before being deported.
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