The immigrant was deprived of US citizenship after 25 years of living in America: he lied in the immigration form

A resident of Plano, Texas, was stripped of his American citizenship and deported. He has been linked to human rights abuses as an officer during the Salvadoran civil war, reports DallasNews.

Photo: IStock

Arnoldo Antonio Vazquez, 60, a former second lieutenant in the El Salvadorian armed forces, was sent back to his native El Salvador this month as a result of prosecution for illegally obtaining US citizenship.

Investigations and prosecutions, which are quite rare, were carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's human rights and war crimes unit and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations Unit. Lawyers for the Department of Justice took the case to trial.

Vasquez came to Texas in 1999 with legal status and became a naturalized US citizen in 2004. He lived in Plano with his family.

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He was accused of failing to report his previous arrest and detention for alleged involvement in the 1988 massacre that killed 10 unarmed Salvadoran civilians near San Sebastian, a village about 15 kilometers from the capital. During the 12-year civil war in El Salvador, 75 people died.

The Department of Justice noted in its initial complaint that the charges were dropped in 1990 by the Salvadoran government.

“Revoking someone’s naturalization is a very high bar,” said Terry Karl, a war crimes expert and professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Stanford University who testified at the 2018 trial. “The standard of evidence is very high here.”

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“While he may have refused to actually shoot civilians, we believe the former officer 'facilitated' and 'participated in the commission of' extrajudicial killings during the El Salvadoran civil war. This made it impossible to be entitled to enjoy the “high privilege” of American citizenship,” the judges wrote.

The appellate judges relied on jurisprudence involving Jews and Nazis to determine what it meant to "assist" persecution during the Holocaust when no actual killing took place.

During a federal trial in 2018, Vasquez insisted that he resigned when he was ordered to commit the murders by a superior officer. Vazquez said he did not kill anyone near San Sebastian and was not at the execution site.

According to court testimony, in 1989, then Vice President Dan Quayle visited El Salvador, which was receiving US aid, and asked that three officers, including Vasquez, be investigated for their role in the massacre.

A key question during the trial was whether Vasquez lied in his naturalization statement, which was magnified on a courtroom monitor: "Have you ever been arrested or detained by a law enforcement officer (including INS and military personnel) for what any reason?"

Vazquez said he believed the question was about an arrest in the US. He then admitted three traffic tickets in the Dallas area on his citizenship application.

Vazquez repeatedly stated through a court interpreter that he was not detained or imprisoned in El Salvador. Instead, Vazquez said that during the investigation into the San Sebastian murders, he was kept in military barracks, but was able to walk, go to the gym and eat in the cafeteria.

He came to the US on an immigrant visa in 1999 through his wife, the daughter of a US citizen, according to the original US government complaint.

Joshua Turin, the Dallas lawyer who represented Vasquez, disagreed with the appeal decision, calling it a "miscarriage of justice" and insisting that Vasquez was not involved in the San Sebastian killings.

Vazquez, according to Turin, “was deported, forever separated from his wife and children, one of whom served with honors in the US Army, and the other is studying at Columbia Law School. The government got what it wanted."

Robert Lynch, interim director of the Dallas field office for law enforcement and removals, said Vasquez's deportation was "a necessary step." Vasquez's citizenship was revoked in August 2021. He then faced charges in federal immigration court and was stripped of his citizenship this month, according to ICE.

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“His prior involvement in egregious human rights violations completely disqualifies him from U.S. citizenship,” Lynch said. “We have played a role in ensuring that the United States is not a safe haven for human rights abusers.”

ICE said in a press release that it had expelled 1100 people "known or suspected of violating human rights" from the United States.

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