A Trinida­di­an-born Iraq war vet­er­an, who legal­ly lived in the Unit­ed States for more than 20 years, is now fac­ing de­por­ta­tion af­ter be­ing de­tained by US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE).

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports com­ing out of the Unit­ed States via MSN news and Ari­zona Cen­tral, Mar­lon Par­ris, 44, who served six years in the US Army with three de­ploy­ments to Iraq, was ar­rest­ed on Jan­u­ary 22 near his home in Laveen, Ari­zona, as he made his way to an ATM. He is cur­rent­ly be­ing held at a pri­vate de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty in Flo­rence, Ari­zona, while await­ing a Feb­ru­ary 27 im­mi­gra­tion court hear­ing.

The ar­rest has prompt­ed the na­tion­al vet­er­ans' ad­vo­ca­cy group Com­mon De­fence to launch a pe­ti­tion de­mand­ing Par­ris' re­lease, the re­in­state­ment of his green card, and ex­ec­u­tive ac­tion to pro­tect non-cit­i­zen mil­i­tary vet­er­ans.

"Vet­er­ans who have raised their right hand to serve this coun­try, re­gard­less of what we sent them to do, re­gard­less of where they orig­i­nat­ed from, do not ever de­serve to be tossed away," said Jo­jo Sweatt, a Ma­rine Corps vet­er­an and the group's or­ga­niz­ing di­rec­tor, in a re­port pub­lished by The Ari­zona Re­pub­lic.

Par­ris is a fa­ther of sev­en.

His le­gal res­i­den­cy sta­tus in the US was thrown in­to ques­tion af­ter a 2011 con­vic­tion for a non-vi­o­lent drug-re­lat­ed of­fence. He served five years in prison.

His wife be­lieves the ar­rest stems from US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump's in­ten­si­fied im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment poli­cies, which pri­ori­tise the re­moval of non-cit­i­zens with crim­i­nal records, re­gard­less of their mil­i­tary ser­vice.

"We were tak­ing care of the green card is­sue," she said in a news re­port. "Noth­ing has changed ex­cept the pres­i­dent."

Par­ris im­mi­grat­ed to the US from Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1997 as the son of a nat­u­ralised Amer­i­can cit­i­zen. He joined the Army in 2001, serv­ing un­til 2007 when he was ho­n­ourably dis­charged with di­ag­noses of PTSD and brain trau­ma from his time in ar­moured tanks.

In 2017, he suc­cess­ful­ly re­newed his green card and trav­elled abroad sev­er­al times with his wife with­out in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, in Oc­to­ber 2023, while re­turn­ing from Bar­ba­dos, cus­toms of­fi­cers at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port con­fis­cat­ed his green card. Al­though he had been con­sult­ing an im­mi­gra­tion at­tor­ney to re­solve the is­sue, ICE agents showed up three months lat­er to de­tain him.

Par­ris' ar­rest has height­ened con­cerns among vet­er­ans' ad­vo­cates who fear that more im­mi­grant vet­er­ans could face a sim­i­lar fate.