“How Deportation has banished thousands of U.S. Veterans to Mexico”
Speaker: George J. Sandoval, Vietnam War veteran and documentary film maker
Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020 6pm – Berg Hall
About the topic: Mr. Sandoval has embarked on his latest project taking him to Tijuana to film and interview U.S. military veterans deported by our government. Mr. Sandoval joins a growing number of American elected representatives, veterans and civil liberties groups demanding justice for military veterans and to Bring the Deported Veterans Home! 
Thousands of veterans of the U.S. armed forces have been unceremoniously deported. Many are combat veterans who sustained physical wounds and emotional trauma in conflicts going back to the war in Vietnam. Many were decorated for their service. But service records notwithstanding, the U.S. has seen fit to kick them out of the country they swore to defend. The largest number of these veterans live exiled in the border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The vast majority had been in the United States lawfully for decades and long ago lost any ties to the nations in which they were born. Many do not speak Spanish, and Mexico is a foreign land far from home.
Our federal government failed to ensure that service members were naturalized during military careers, or shortly thereafter, although nearly all deported veterans were eligible to naturalize during their service. Deportations have denied veterans comprehensive medical care they would receive in the U.S., leaving many to die or suffer. Nearly all deported veterans have left behind families who have struggled with the absence of a spouse, sibling, parent or child.
About George J. Sandoval: Mr. Sandoval is the executive director and founder of the non-profit Oxnard Film Society. In 2015, He produced and co-curated the exhibit, We Remember- Ventura County to Vietnam and Back, for the Museum of Ventura County, which included a memorial wall honoring the 114 soldiers from Ventura County who died in the war. From 2001-2014 he was a member and past president of the Ojai Film Society. He has produced and directed numerous documentaries including El Campo: A Brief History of the Piru Labor Camp built during the Bracero Program; The Chinese in Ventura County; Oxnard -The Changing Face of an American City; and The Moment a 30-min. film in collaboration with writer/poet Aram Saroyan.