Deported Kenyan Veteran Urges Congress to Protect Immigrant Service Members

A Kenyan-born former US Army serviceman has renewed his call for Congress to introduce stronger legal protections for immigrant veterans facing deportation despite completing honourable military service.

David Kinyua Bariu, who was deported from the United States in 2008, says his case demonstrates the challenges faced by non-citizen service members who serve in the military but remain vulnerable to immigration enforcement. His appeal comes as lawmakers continue to debate immigration reform and the treatment of foreign-born military personnel.

Kinyua travelled to the United States in 1998 on a student visa to study at Southern Arkansas University. During a summer break in Dallas, he was recruited into the US Army by a recruiting officer who was later court-martialled for illegally enlisting international students. 

Kinyua says he was assured that his immigration status made him eligible to enlist, receive education benefits under the GI Bill and eventually become a US citizen. He completed his military service with an honourable discharge before joining the Air Force Reserve, where he worked as a surgical and optometry technician. 

However, his immigration status later came under scrutiny after an immigration judge ruled that leaving university to join the Army had violated the conditions of his student visa. The decision placed him at risk of deportation.

Kinyua also applied for US citizenship under wartime naturalisation provisions, but the application was not completed. In 2007, officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him at his home in Texas, seized his military and veterans' records, and detained him for nearly a year. 

He was deported to Kenya in 2008 after serving for more than five years in the US Armed Forces. Now living in Nairobi, Kinyua says the law should better recognise the service of immigrant veterans. He argues that those who complete military service should have a clear opportunity to obtain citizenship and should not face deportation after fulfilling their duties.