A small group of advocates gathered outside the federal courthouse in San Diego, California, on Thursday morning.
One of them pointed to a poster of a young man in a U.S. Navy uniform with three gold medals pinned to his chest.
“This is my brother, Benito Miranda Hernandez, a U.S. Navy veteran,” said James Smith, founder of Deported Black Veterans of America.
Mr. Smith and other supporters organized demonstrations on behalf of Mr. Hernandez, who at the time was being held in an immigration detention facility miles away.
Hernandez, who was brought to the United States from Mexico as a baby, had completed three tours of duty with the U.S. military during the Iraq War. His military service was supposed to be a path to citizenship.
But now Hernandez is among the veterans fighting deportation under President Donald Trump.
“These men and women were promised citizenship if they served in the military,” Smith said. “Please help this brother come home.”
President Trump has promised to prioritize immigrants with criminal records in his mass deportation drive.
But advocates for U.S. military personnel say veterans are particularly vulnerable because they are overcrowded in prisons and jails. The majority report suffering from mental health issues after work.
For example, Hernandez said he had a hard time re-entering civilian life after leaving the military. But on June 14, he finally completed a multi-year sentence for a drug conviction.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him as he waited for his mother, Maria Miranda, to pick him up.
Only later did Miranda and her other son arrive. That day, they had no idea where he went and spent hours looking for him.
“He was doing the right thing,” Miranda told Al Jazeera in Spanish. “He had a lot of hopes and a lot of dreams.”
Hernandez was then transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. He faces deportation even though he received a green card for permanent residence earlier this year. He previously spoke about his experience in an article published in Al Jazeera in April.
Hernandez’s detention is part of a trend under the Trump administration.
Although it is impossible to determine the exact number of veterans deported, and ICE has long been unable to collect the veteran status of those in its custody, as is required, several advocates told Al Jazeera that they have seen an increase in deportations of U.S. veterans during President Trump’s second term.
The New York Times reported in March that at least 34 veterans entered deportation proceedings last year.
Some cases received media attention. But advocates say other immigrant veterans are avoiding the spotlight for fear it could harm their immigration cases.
“As ICE raids continue and are re-enforced across the United States, we will unfortunately lose veterans who are no longer U.S. citizens,” said Robert Vivar, co-founder of the Tijuana-based United States Deported Veterans Resource Center.
Danitza James, president of the advocacy group Repatriate Our Patriots, said veterans, like other immigrants across the country, are being detained while processing mandatory immigration procedures.
They are often flagged as having outstanding warrants or criminal convictions that have not been canceled. James said he has been in contact with about six veterans detained by ICE in 2026 alone.
“Our government places no value on serving immigrants,” James, himself a military veteran and naturalized citizen, told Al Jazeera. “They honestly think we’re disposable.”
For decades, the U.S. military has been recruiting immigrants to fight in wars overseas to address manpower shortages.
Recruitment officials often tell immigrant enlistees that military service is a shortcut to naturalized citizenship.
In theory you should. However, many immigrant soldiers like Hernandez report delays in the naturalization process while deployed.
When Hernandez was called for a citizenship interview in 2006, it had been two years since his last deployment. At that time he was convicted and the civil rights case was dismissed.
Advocates like Smith say the failure to protect immigrant veterans represents a major failure by the government in military policy.
“The U.S. government is not accountable for what it has created,” Smith told Al Jazeera. “You take us and strip us of some of our humanity so that we can be killed with no repercussions.”
“And once you get out, there’s no process to prepare you to go back into the civilian world.”
Several bills are currently being considered in Congress to protect immigrant veterans. But recruiters continue to target immigrant communities with promises of quick citizenship.
Hernandez’s next steps are not yet clear. At Thursday’s meeting, an attorney for a local immigration nonprofit told Smith and other advocates that the organization might be interested in supporting Hernandez’s case.
Meanwhile, Hernandez’s mother has been trying to keep him healthy.
Miranda received a call from the ICE detention facility and will meet with him during visiting hours at the facility on Saturday. But the two-hour drive from Anaheim to San Diego is difficult for her health.
“When I met him on Saturday, he was very, very depressed,” Miranda told Al Jazeera.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to cause you any more problems. I don’t want to upset your mom any more. I’m doing the right thing. I’m praying for myself,'” Miranda recalled through tears.
“They cut off the bird’s wings and all the hope he had and threw them in the trash.”
