He Has A Purple Heart & Is A Convicted Felon. ICE Wants To Deport Him

Speaker 1 Support for NPR and the following message come from Washington Wise. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day.

Speaker 1 Washington Wise from Charles Schwab is an original podcast that unpacks the stories making news in Washington. Listen at schwab.com/slash WashingtonWise.

Speaker 3 Hi, this is Alvin, and I am currently at Hineda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. I've just completed a two-week tour of Japan with my son for his 10th birthday.

Speaker 3 This podcast was recorded at 1.06 p.m.

Speaker 4 Eastern Time on Monday, April 7th of 2025.

Speaker 3 Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I can assure you that this is a trip we will never forget.

Speaker 2 Okay, here's the show.

Speaker 4 Sounds sweet. I've never been to Japan outside of like a presidential little trip, which you know.

Speaker 2 My wife actually taught English there after college. Really?

Speaker 4 Such a treat. Well, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Asamakaled. I cover the White House.

Speaker 5 I'm Jimena Bustio, and I cover immigration policy.

Speaker 2 I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon.

Speaker 4 And today on the show, President Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history.
We look at the complicated process of deportation through the story of one man.

Speaker 4 He's an Iraq war veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart, later convicted of a crime, and now facing deportation under the Trump administration.

Speaker 4 And Tom, I want to begin with you because you have this exclusive reporting. Tell us more about the man at the center of the story.
His name is Jose Barco.

Speaker 4 How did he come to the United States in the first place?

Speaker 2 Well, he came to the United States when he was four years old with his parents from Venezuela, but the parents are Cuban. The dad did some time in a Cuban prison.

Speaker 2 They fled to Venezuela and then came to the United States, again, when he was just four years old.

Speaker 4 And so he grows up in the United States from the age of four on. He then goes on to enlist in the U.S.
Army and is deployed to Iraq. What happens to him there overseas?

Speaker 2 Well, he goes into the Army at the age of 17 and deploys to Iraq in the summer of 2004.

Speaker 2 And in November of that year, there's this suicide car bomb hits his platoon. He was slammed against a wall, and he ended up somehow being able to pull two soldiers from under this flaming car.

Speaker 2 He gets a purple heart, but they never detected that he had traumatic brain injury. They just treated him for his burns, severe burns.

Speaker 2 And he ends up coming back to the United States for that treatment.

Speaker 2 And this comes at a time, Osma, when the military really didn't understand the effects of traumatic brain injury on people, plus PTSD as well. So he comes back.

Speaker 2 It was never diagnosed until maybe a year later. And at that point, they just give you some pills to take, you know, anti-anxiety pills and so forth.

Speaker 2 But he convinces the doctors to let him go for another tour

Speaker 2 in Iraq in 2006. He gets gets more concussions, he's in brutal combat, and he comes home.
And of course, you know, his symptoms are amplified by his second tour.

Speaker 2 And in the middle of all this, you know, he applies for citizenship, does his packet through the Army. The packet gets lost somewhere.

Speaker 4 Does he know the packet's been lost?

Speaker 2 He does not know the packet has been lost. So he's discharged from the Army in 2008.

Speaker 2 And, you know, TBI traumatic brain injury and PTSD, you know, it can basically make you impulsive, irrational.

Speaker 2 And he ends up going to this party in Colorado Springs, where he was living. He came out of Fort Carson, Colorado, and pulls out a handgun in this party and shoots into the ceiling.

Speaker 2 They throw him out of the party. And then he's driving by the party and shoots at these people on the porch, hitting a pregnant woman in the leg, giving her a serious leg injury.

Speaker 2 He ends up getting two counts of attempted first-degree murder and also menacing. The judge gives gives him 52 years in jail.

Speaker 2 And his first parole hearing, they let him out for good behavior. He taught English and math and.

Speaker 2 He gets out of jail on January 21st of this year, one day

Speaker 4 after Trump's inauguration.

Speaker 2 Walks out of the prison right into the arms of ICE and thrown in a van.

Speaker 4 I have so many follow-up questions there, Tom, but I do want to bring Jimena into the conversation.

Speaker 4 You just did a really detailed and important explainer on how deportation works, the process of deportation, which is incredibly complicated.

Speaker 4 But based on what you've been listening to from Tom, how does Barco's case relate to what typically happens in a deportation case?

Speaker 5 A lot of parts and elements of this are very typical and do mirror what happens when you are put into deportation processes.

Speaker 5 The first can be the citizenship process, application process is very just confusing. And I think that this story is very indicative of how complicated the process can be.

Speaker 5 You can think that you filed everything correctly. Things can get lost in the mail.
That is very typical in the immigration process.

Speaker 4 But then immediately after being released from jail, is it the case that ICE is waiting there to pick up somebody who was formerly convicted of a crime and has now been released?

Speaker 5 Yes. So what Tom is describing is what's known as a detainer.
When someone is put into ICE custody, more often than not, they were first originally arrested by some sort of local law enforcement.

Speaker 5 There just is not enough manpower, enough federal agents to go out and do individualized arrests, even though that is something that this administration has been highlighting and putting at the front of everyone's feeds.

Speaker 5 So, what happens is someone is more likely than not first arrested on some other offense, civil infraction, criminal infraction, driving infraction, anything like that.

Speaker 5 They go through that court process.

Speaker 5 That local jail, that county prison flags it to ice and says, we have someone without legal status, you can come pick them up. Being arrested by local law enforcement is a pipeline to deportation.

Speaker 5 Not always, but it's one of the most common, which is why immigrant rights advocates and anyone who is undocumented, the first thing they'll tell you is they avoid contact with law enforcement at all costs.

Speaker 4 All right, well, we have lots more to discuss, but we're going to take a quick break first.

Speaker 6 This message comes from NPR sponsor CNN. Stream Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Prime Cuts, Now, exclusively on the CNN app.

Speaker 6 These rarely seen, never-before-streamed episodes dig deep into the Parts Unknown archives with personal insights from Anthony Bourdain and rare behind-the-scenes interviews about each season.

Speaker 6 Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Prime Cuts, now streaming exclusively on the CNN app. Subscribe now at cnn.com/slash all access, available in the U.S.
only.

Speaker 6 This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices, like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it.

Speaker 6 You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit Schwab.com to learn more.
This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification.

Speaker 6 Interior Designer and CIDQ President Siavash Madhani describes the rigor of NCIDQ NCIDQ certification.

Speaker 7 An NCIDQ certified interior designer must complete a minimum of six years of specialized education and work experience.

Speaker 7 Being NCIDQ certified means that you've proven your knowledge and skills and are recognized as a qualified interior design professional.

Speaker 6 Learn more at cidq.org slash NPR.

Speaker 4 And we're back. Jimina.
This man,

Speaker 4 Jose Barco, was in the United States as a lawful resident.

Speaker 4 He came here, as Tom said, as a four-year-old, and he started the process of becoming a citizen nearly 20 years ago, but that paperwork got lost.

Speaker 4 I have a bunch of questions about this, but I just want to ask for clarity here at the outset. I was under the assumption that serving in the military was a fast track for citizenship.

Speaker 5 It can definitely be an expedited way to naturalization, but your paperwork has to make it.

Speaker 5 Same thing for the spouses of those who serve in the the military, who are U.S. citizens.
It can be an easier way to be naturalized. It gives you more credibility.

Speaker 5 It gives you more backing, but your paperwork has to make it.

Speaker 4 So, Tom, he was a lawful permanent resident. But how did his residency status get him into the position where he is now facing deportation?

Speaker 2 Well, you can lose that lawful resident designation if you commit a felony. And apparently what happened in this case, while he was in prison, he lost that right.

Speaker 4 Was he notified of that?

Speaker 2 Well, we don't know. And again, he was in prison.
I think he assumed he was a U.S.

Speaker 2 citizen because, again, he filled out the paperwork way back in 2006, and everyone assumed he was a citizen, and when, in fact, he was not. He was still technically a citizen of Venezuela.

Speaker 4 So we were talking earlier about the fact that he leaves prison, and ICE. picks him up immediately.
He is facing deportation. And Tom, where does he go?

Speaker 2 So he's bounced around to several ICE detention facilities. In one, he ends up in South Texas.
And he's with all these other Venezuelans, right, who are going to get on a plane and go to Venezuela.

Speaker 2 They didn't believe he was Venezuelan. He's very light-skinned.
And with his accent, it's a Cuban accent.

Speaker 2 All these Venezuelans called him Cuba, right? So he's on his way to Venezuela just last week, and this plane load of Venezuelans, they stop in Honduras as a way station.

Speaker 2 Venezuelan officials question him and they also say, you're not Venezuelan, you're Cuban. He said, no, I'm a Venezuelan citizen.

Speaker 2 Here's my birth certificate. And they said, oh, that looks too new.
That has to be forged.

Speaker 2 They refuse to take him. They send him back to a detention center in South Texas where he sits today.

Speaker 4 What happens next?

Speaker 2 We don't know what happens next.

Speaker 2 His family is worried, since Venezuela will not take him, since he's stuck in this detention center again in South Texas, that he may be sent to El El Salvador, which is really troubling, this horrible prison down in El Salvador.

Speaker 2 And also his story, again, is a complicated one. One of his friends, one of his advocates said, you know, you can cherry-pick this story and you can see him as a villain or a hero.

Speaker 2 And the woman who he shot in the leg, severe injury, I reached out to her family and they said, yeah, get rid of him. Send him out of the country.
So again, it's how you perceive the story.

Speaker 2 But one of his friends said, listen, he did his time in prison. He was a model prisoner.
He's also a hero. He saved his colleagues in Iraq.
He should not be sent out of this country.

Speaker 4 It sounds like he is living in limbo, though, now at this moment, with no home country willing to accept him.

Speaker 2 He's clearly a man at this point with no country.

Speaker 2 Is that common, Jimena?

Speaker 5 This is one of the biggest challenges to fully removing someone from the United States is whether or not their country is even going to accept them back.

Speaker 5 Venezuela is one of the countries that has not received deportation flights. And just now they've restarted some, a very historic move.

Speaker 5 There were some last week, as Tom mentioned, but that's not normal. And other countries have put up barriers to how many flights can come a week, if any flights at all.

Speaker 5 And that means even if an immigration judge says that you should be removed from the United States, it doesn't mean you actually are.

Speaker 4 Can you remain in a detention facility for years then?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 4 Tom, have you received any response to your reporting from the Trump administration?

Speaker 2 No, we have not. My colleague Quill Lawrence, who worked on the story with me, reached out to ICE.
No response.

Speaker 4 All right. Well, that is a wrap for today's show.
I really appreciate you both bringing your reporting to the podcast. I'm Asma Khaled, I cover the White House.

Speaker 5 I'm Jiman Abustio, and I cover immigration policy.

Speaker 2 I'm Tom Bowman, I cover the Pentagon.

Speaker 4 And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Speaker 6 This message comes from Vital Farms, who works with small American farms to bring you pastor-raised eggs.

Speaker 6 Farmer Tanner Pace shares why he believes it's important to care for his land and how he hopes to pass the opportunity to farm onto his sons.

Speaker 8 We're paving the way for a future. We only have one earth and we have to make it count.

Speaker 8 Like my boys, I want to see them taking care of the land for them to be able to farm and then generations to come.

Speaker 8 I really enjoy seeing especially my whole family up there working with me and to be able to instill the things that my father, mother, and then grandparents instilled in me that I can instill in the boys.

Speaker 8 That's just the most rewarding thing that there could ever be. Vital farms.

Speaker 8 They're motivated for the well-being of the animals, for the well-being of the land, the whole grand scope of things, they care about it all. You know, and that means a lot to me.

Speaker 6 To learn more about how Vital Farms farmers care for their hens, visit vitalfarms.com.

Speaker 1 Support for this podcast and the following message come from Humana. Employees are the heartbeat of your business.

Speaker 1 That's why Humana offers dental, vision, life, and disability benefits designed to help protect them. Award-winning service, expansive networks, and modern benefits.
That's the power of human care.

Speaker 1 To learn more about Humana's plans for companies of all sizes and benefits budgets, visit humana.com/slash employer.