Stepping Up for Veterans

Since 2009, students in Berkeley Law’s Veteran’s Law Practicum have helped former service members solve an array of problems.

Now, they’re tackling a new issue: The deportation of veterans after criminal convictions, often stemming from mental health conditions related to their military service. Hundreds of former service members have been sent to Mexico, with many others now in Jamaica, various countries in Africa, and elsewhere across the globe.

Lecturer and practicum leader Rose Carmen Goldberg, who supervises students working with an alliance of legal aid organizations, immigration law experts, a former judge, and affected veterans, calls it “an under- recognized and long unaddressed injustice.” She adds, “First, they face incarceration. Then, they face the second punishment of exile. These veterans deserve mental health care and support — not banishment and separation from their families.”

Assessing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “humanitarian parole program” for deported people to return to the U.S. temporarily for urgent needs like health care, Goldberg’s students craft proposals to restructure the program and make it more accessible and efficient, as so many requests are based on time-sensitive health issues.

The students are also pursuing policy reforms so deported veterans can access vital U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health care and disability benefits to which they’re entitled to by law — but are largely out of reach overseas, sometimes with dire consequences. In addition, the students interview deported veterans around the world in order to ground recommendations in their lived experiences and highlight their conditions in jail and immigration detention.

3L Joe St. Clair and 2L Eric Wright, who served a combined six tours in Afghanistan, say service members are taught to prioritize operations over their physical and mental health.

“You could look at a deported veteran and say this is a person who has broken the law and is a criminal and has no right to be here,” St. Clair says. “Or instead, you could say this is someone who sacrificed everything and then was punished for trying to simply survive the aftereffects of the trauma the military put them through.”

While working at the intersection of veterans law, immigration law, and criminal law, students chip away at institutional roadblocks.

“Our common lived experiences with veterans, even if generations apart, really help start the conversation from a position of trust,” Wright says. “When a veteran entrusts you with a memory they’ve never shared with anyone in their lives, it’s such a powerful moment.”

“They’ve lived for decades with the shame of being told there was something wrong with them and that they’re inherently flawed despite the fact that they’ve made more sacrifices for our society than nearly anyone else,” St. Clair says. “Acknowledging what they’ve been through … completely changes the narrative of their lives and gives them the peace that they never thought was possible.” — Gwyneth K. Shaw