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The Army veteran, who grew up in Van Nuis and was awarded a self-promotional Purple Heart this week, was self-promotional to South Korea after being detained and threatened to be deported by federal immigration forces.
veteran Sae Joon Park legally moved from Korea at the age of seven on Monday, growing up in Koreatown and San Fernando Valley, and returned to his hometown at the age of 55, under the threat of deportation.
“It’s incredible. It’s still unbelievable that this actually happened,” Park said in a phone interview with incheon early Wednesday morning. “I know I made my mistake…but it’s not like I’m a violent criminal. It’s not that I’m robbing people at the gun or hurting anyone.
Sae Jun Park is an army veteran with a purple heart.
(From Sae Joon Park)
Homeland Security Deputy Director Tricia McLaughlin said she was asked to comment on the park. The park has a “extensive criminal history” and is given a final deletion order with options for self-denial.
Park said he suffered from PTSD and addiction after his injuries when he retired General Manuel Noriega, a part of the US military that invaded Panama in 1989 and de facto leader of the country.
But now, Park, a legal immigrant, is targeted by federal authorities in President Trump’s recent immigration attacks that cited widespread protests across Los Angeles and across the country. Federal authorities arrested more than 1,600 immigrants in deportation in Southern California between June 6th and 22nd, according to the DHS.
Non-citizens are eligible for naturalization if they are honored in the US military for at least one year. Park served less than a year after he was injured and honoredly released from hospital.
Since 2002, more than 158,000 immigration service members have become US citizens.
As of 2021, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of DHS will be responsible for tracking deported veterans and still having access to the VA benefits.
Park’s parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother moved from Korea to the US. He followed her a year later. They first lived in Koreatown, then moved to Panorama City, then to Van Nuis. He graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks in 1988.
Initially learning English and struggling to adapt with his classmates, he eventually became part of the skateboarding and surfing scene in Southern California in the 1980s. They have been close friends ever since.
“He’s always smiling and has a very lively energy about him,” said Belson, who attended a nearby high school when they met. “He was the kind of person you wanted.”
After graduating, Park said he wasn’t ready to attend college, so he joined the military.
“The Army not only turned me into a man, they also offered me the GI bill, so I could go to college later and they could pay for it. And the fact that I believed in the country, the US. “So I felt like I was standing there. When I joined the military, I was very proud.”
Park’s platoon was deployed to Panama in late 1989, where he said he had experienced a gunfight on his first night. The next day he said he was carrying an M-16 when he attacked one of the “witch” Noriega’s homes. He said he saw a voodoo prayer room with body parts and crosses on the floor.
While there he hears the shooting from his backyard and returns the fire. He was shot twice in the spine and lower left back. The bullets to his spine were partially deflected by his dog tag. Park thinks it’s the reason he’s not paralyzed. The gunfight delayed military ambulances, but a nearby Vietnamese veteran rescued him, Park said.
“I’m just lying in my pool of blood and leaking badly, so he actually went home and got a pickup truck, put it in the back of the pickup truck with two soldiers and took me to the hospital,” Park said.
He was then taken shelter at the Army Hospital in San Antonio. The four-star general awarded a purple heart at his bedside. Then President George W. Bush visited the injured soldiers there.
Park spent about two weeks there and then went home for about a month before he could walk. His experiences, he said, brought about mental issues that he had not recognized.
“My biggest problem back then was more than my injuries. I didn’t know if anyone hadn’t done that because there was no PTSD at the time,” he said. Eventually, I realized I was suffering badly from PTSD, and it was nightmares, serious every night. I couldn’t hear the loud noises, and I was able to hear the gunshots in LA. You left the house so I was always paranoid.
Park has started self-medicine with marijuana. However, he began to take the harder drug and eventually cracked the cocaine. He moved to Hawaii after his mother and stepfather’s LA store burned during the 1992 riots and got married. After Park and his wife parted ways, he moved to New York City, where his addiction got worse.
“It really got worse. It just got out of control – every day, every night, all day – just smoking, everything was all,” Park said.
One night, in the late 2000s, he was meeting a drug seller at Taco Bell in Queens when police surrounded his car, and the dealer escaped leaving a massive amount of cracks in his glove compartment, Park said.
The judge sent the park twice to rehabilitate, but he said he wasn’t ready to be calm.
“I couldn’t. I was an addict. It was very difficult for me to keep it clean. I’ll be recurring for 30 days,” he said. “I’m going to recur for 20 days. It was a very struggle. Finally, the judge said, “Mr. Park, the next time you come to my court with dirty urine, you’re going to prison.” That’s why I got scared. ”
So Park didn’t return to court, he drove to Los Angeles and then returned to Hawaii, where he skipped bail, a worsening felony.
“I didn’t know that Jump bail was a felony charge at the time. It’s combined with my drug use. It’s something that people like me can deport with a green card,” he said.
The US ex-sent was sent to search the park and after hearing about this, he said he turned himself in August 2009. Because he didn’t want to be arrested in front of his two children.
He said he served in prison for two years and detained him for six months after his release when immigration officers fought deportation orders. He was eventually released under a “deferred lawsuit.” This is the discretionary law of the Prosecutor’s Act to postpone deportation by DHS.
Since then, Park has had to check in to federal officials every year to show that he was employed and calm. Meanwhile, he had only custody of two children, now 28 and 25. He was also caring for his 85-year-old mother, who was in the early stages of dementia.
During his latest check-in, Park was about to be handcuffed and detained, but immigration agents placed him ankle monitor and organized his duties for three weeks, self-denial. He is not permitted to return to the United States for 10 years. He worries about his mother’s death and his daughter’s wedding.
“That’s the biggest part, but… that could be even worse. I see it that way,” Park said. “So I’m grateful that I made it from the US without being bound.”
“I always thought that green cards, legal residencies were like citizenship,” he added. “I didn’t feel like I had to get citizenship. That’s honest. As a child growing up in the US, I always meant I was a green card holder, a legal resident, and I’m just a citizen.”
Since then, his condition has been spiral.
“It’s okay. I’m losing it. I can’t stop crying. I think PTSD is kicking strong,” Park texted Belson on Thursday. “I just want to go back to my family and take care of my mother… I’m confused.”
Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
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