An Iraq War Veteran Fighting Deportation Won ’t Be Released From Detention

(SEATTLE) — An immigration judge in Washington state declined to release an Iraq War veteran from custody Wednesday while he fights the government’s efforts to deport him. Chong Kim, a South Korean immigrant and green card holder from Portland, Oregon, struggled with drug addiction, homelessness and post-traumatic stress following his time in Iraq in 2009 and 2010, leading to convictions for burglary and other charges. Kim’s lawyer and friends have said he has done well since completing a substance abuse treatment program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs early this year. But immigration agents arrested him in April and brought him to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington. They plan to deport him because of his convictions. “It’s just wrong to be deporting an Army veteran,” said Matt Luce, 41, of Troutdale, Oregon, who attended high school with Kim and traveled with three other former classmates to the hearing Wednesday. “Despite his convictions, he was on and continues to be on the right path. This is just a travesty of justice.” Kim’s attorney, Tim Warden-Hertz of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said that Immigration Judge Theresa Scala found that the government met its burden to show that Kim posed a danger to the public or a risk of flight, though he said she did not explain her rationale in court. Warden-Hertz planned to appeal the decision, which he said illustrates the difficulty of obtaining bon...
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