Miguel Perez, Sr. holds a photo of his son, Army Private 1st Class Miguel Perez, Jr.

Army Private 1st Class Miguel Perez, Jr., the Afghanistan veteran deported by the Trump administration this past weekend, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took selfies “like fishermen with a prize fish” during the flight and despite being transported with a group of others, was singled out ahead of them. “They wanted to make sure to get rid of me first,” he told the Chicago Tribune. Perez wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to his family and “didn't realize he'd been deported to Mexico until it was too late to turn back,” CNN reported:

Perez was escorted across the US-Mexico border from Texas and handed over to Mexican authorities Friday, ICE said in a statement. Perez says a truck took him to an airport in Indiana. He was then flown to Brownsville, Texas, ICE said. When he got off the plane, Perez said he arrived at a "place that looked like an office." "I did not know it was already the bridge to enter the other side," he said, adding that he walked through a door that closed quickly behind him. "When I went back they told me everything is over."

Perez had been in ICE detention since 2016, after getting his green card revoked over a nonviolent drug conviction. Perez “said that what he saw and experienced in Afghanistan sent his life off the rails,” leading him to struggle with PTSD and addiction. The same administration that wants to throw a parade to honor the military could have stopped his deportation and helped put him on a road to recovery. They didn’t. "Although I am free,” Perez said from Tijuana, “there is not much joy in being free.”

“This is an intolerable way to treat a man who fought bravely for this nation,” said Rev. Emma Lozano of the Lincoln United Methodist Church, who, along with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), had advocated for a stop to his deportation. “They have left him homeless and penniless in a dangerous place, without food or money or clothes or needed medications.”

Perez said his struggles began following his second deployment to Afghanistan. "After the second tour, there was more alcohol and that was also when I tried some drugs … but the addiction really started after I got back to Chicago, when I got back home, because I did not feel very sociable.”