Marine returns to United States

Daniel Torres just wanted to go home. The former Marine and combat veteran has been wanting to go home for five years, ever since he left the United States for Mexico because of his documentation status.

Last week Torres got his wish.  After re-entering the United States on a temporary visa on Wednesday to a small crowd of cheering friends and strangers, he was sworn in as a United States citizen April 21 — possibly the first deported veteran to be granted full citizenship in the history of the United States.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for five years,” Torres told media outside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration building in downtown San Diego on Thursday afternoon.

“I’m able to finally go home and live the life that I feel like I need to live.”

Torres, 30, was born in Tijuana, but grew up without documentation in the United States after his parents brought him to the country and overstayed their visas.  Anxious to gain his citizenship, and wanting to fight on behalf of the United States, he joined the military in 2007 with falsified documents.  He went to Iraq and fought there.

When his unit returned to the U.S., Torres lost his wallet and went to the DMV to get new documents. The DMV discovered he had used a faked birth certificate to enlist and notified the military, leaving Torres unable to re-enlist or get a job.

Not long afterward he moved to Tijuana, the city of his birth.  There he enrolled in law school and found work at a call center — but he always yearned to return to the United States.

Torres became an active part of the Deported Veterans Support House — colloquially known as The Bunker — in Tijuana last year.

The Bunker, a small building near UABC’s Tijuana campus, is festooned with American flags and frequented by veterans of wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It was opened by deported veteran Hector Barajas in 2013 in order to provide support and shelter for U.S. military veterans who have been banished from the United States, often leaving them bereft of their spouses, children, parents or other support networks.

Torres’s case caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union through the Bunker last year, and he filed his paperwork for citizenship a few months ago.

In his case, it was easier because he wasn’t deported — he left the United States of his own accord after he couldn’t find work, get financial aid for college, open a bank account or rent an apartment.

With U.S. citizenship, his plans have changed dramatically. He’ll be finishing law school in Tijuana then getting his law degree certified in the United States. He is keeping his apartment in Tijuana until he finishes school, but can now visit his friends and family who live in National City and beyond — because now, for him, the United States is home.