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

This message comes from the Nature Conservancy, working together to create a future with a livable climate, healthy communities, and thriving nature. Explore ways to act during Earth Month and every month at nature.org slash NPR.
Hi, this is Alvin, and I am currently at Hineda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. I was completed a two-week tour of Japan with my son for his 10th birthday.
This podcast was recorded at 1.06 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, April 7th of 2025.

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

Okay, here's the show.

That sounds sweet. I've never been to Japan outside of like a presidential little trip.
My wife actually taught English there after college. Really? Such a treat.
Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Asma Khaled. I cover the White House.
I'm Jimena Bustio and I cover immigration policy. I'm Tom Bowman.
I cover the Pentagon. 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. 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.
And Tom, I want to begin with you because you have this exclusive of reporting. Tell us more about the man at the center of the story.
His name is Jose Barco. How did he come to the United States in the first place? 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.
They fled to Venezuela and then came to the United States again when he was just four years old. 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? Well, he goes into the Army at the age of 17 and deploys to Iraq in the summer of 2004. And in November of that year, there's this suicide car bomb hits his platoon.
He was slammed against the wall and he ended up somehow being able to pull two soldiers from under this flaming car. He gets a purple heart, but they never detected that he had traumatic brain injury.
They just treated him for his burns, severe burns. And he ends up coming back to the United States for that treatment.
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.
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.
But he convinces the doctors to let him go for another tour in Iraq in 2006. He 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. And in the middle of all this, you know, he applies for citizenship, does his packet through the Army.
The packet gets lost somewhere. Does he know the packet's been lost? He does not know the packet has been lost.
So he's discharged from the Army in 2008. And, you know, TBI traumatic brain injury and PTSD, you know, it can basically make you impulsive or rational.
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. 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. He ends up getting two counts of attempted first-degree murder and also menacing.
The judge gives him 52 years in jail. And his first parole hearing, they let him out for good behavior.
He taught English and math in prison.

And when's that? How recently was he released? He gets out of jail on January 21st of this year. One day.
The day after Trump's inauguration. Walks out of the prison right into the arms of ICE and thrown in a van.
I have so many follow-up questions there, Tom, but I do want to bring Ximena into the conversation. You just did a really detailed and important explainer on how deportation works, the process of deportation, which is incredibly complicated.
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? A lot of parts and elements of this are very typical and do mirror what happens when you are put into deportation processes. 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. You can think that you filed everything correctly.
Things can get lost in the mail. That is very typical in the immigration process.
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? 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. 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.
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. They go through that court process.
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. 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. All right, well, we have lots more to discuss, but we're going to take a quick break first.
This message comes from Tenable. Wondering where your biggest cloud security gaps are? Wonder no more.
Tenable helps you find those gaps before attackers do. They see cloud risks that others don't and give you the power to secure your entire cloud stack, from infrastructure to workloads, from identities to data, and even AI resources.
Know your cloud risk, expose your cloud gaps, and close your cloud exposures fast. Learn more at tenable.com slash cloud.
Your cloud exposure ends here. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies.
With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees.
Join millions of customers and visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.
This message comes from NPR sponsor Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Breast cancer cells multiply faster

because of CDK4-6 proteins. But what if blocking those proteins and stopping runaway cell division

was possible? Dana-Farber scientists laid the foundation for CDK4-6 inhibitors, new drugs that

are increasing the survival rate for many advanced breast cancers. Dana-Farber's momentum of discovery

keeps finding new ways to outmaneuver cancer. More at DanaFarber.org slash everywhere.
And we're back. Ximena, this man, Jose Barco, was in the United States as a lawful resident.
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. 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. It can definitely be an expedited way to naturalization, but your paperwork has to make it.

Same thing for the spouses of those who serve in the military who are U.S. citizens.

It can be an easier way to be naturalized.

It gives you more credibility.

It gives you more backing, but your paperwork has to make it. 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? 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.
Was he notified of that? Well, we don't know. And again, he was in prison.
I think he assumed he was a U.S. 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. 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? So he's bounced around to several ICE detention facilities.
And 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.
They didn't believe he was Venezuelan. He's very light-skinned, and with his accent, it's a Cuban accent.
All these Venezuelans called him Cuba, right? So he's on his way to Venezuela just last week in this plane load of Venezuelans. They stop in Honduras as a way station.
Venezuelan officials question him, and they also say, you're not Venezuelan, you're Cuban. He said, no, I'm a Venezuelan citizen.
Here's my birth certificate. And they said, oh, that looks too new.
That has to be forged. They refused to take him.
They sent him back to a detention center in South Texas, where he sits today. What happens next? We don't know what happens next.
His family is worried, since Venezuela will not take him, since he's stuck stuck in this detention center again in South Texas that he may be sent to El Salvador, which is really troubling, this horrible prison down in El Salvador. 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. and the woman who he shot in the leg, severe injury, I reached out to her family, and they say, yeah, get rid of him.
Send him out of the country. So again, it's how you perceive the story.
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. It sounds like he is living in limbo, though, now at this moment, with no home country willing to accept him.
He's clearly a man at this point with no country. Is that common, Ximena? 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.

Venezuela is one of the countries that has not received deportation flights.

And just now they've restarted some very historic move.

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. 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.
Can you remain in a detention facility for years then? Yes. Tom, have you received any response to your reporting from the Trump administration?

No, we have not. My colleague, Quill Lawrence, who worked on the story with me,

reached out to ICE. No response.

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 Khalid.
I cover the White House.

I'm Ximena Bustio, and I cover immigration policy.

I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon.
And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. This message comes from Warby Parker.
What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost, like free adjustments for life. Find your pair at warbyparker.com or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country.
This message is from Synchrony Bank, who wants to inspire you to keep dreaming the goal-setting, retirement planning, sail-off into the sunset kind of dreams that start with saving smart. Open an account and dream on at synchrony.com slash NPR.
Member FDIC. This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years.
Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off.

Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.