Army Team Leader, VA Psychologist Write Letters to ICE to Free Detained Iraq Veteran in Tacoma

The Northwest Detention Center, a privately-run immigration detention facility in Tacoma, where veteran Chong Kim is being held. ASK

Chong Kim, an Army vet who served in Iraq, came to the United States from South Korea at the age of five. Today, he sits in Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center awaiting deportation proceedings.

You can read more about Kim's story—his service, his subsequent struggles with addiction, homelessness, and a conviction for attempted arson—in this Guardian story. But you should also read the letters his Department of Veterans Affairs psychologist, as well as his Army team leader from his tour in Iraq, wrote to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in order to try and free Kim.

After Kim pleaded guilty to attempted arson, he was sentenced to an in-patient substance abuse treatment program at the VA. His past convictions, according to his lawyer, stemmed from these addiction issues. But just two months after Kim successfully completed the program and found employment as a housekeeper at a veterans hospital, ICE launched deportation proceedings against Kim.

"War can change a person, but Mr Kim gave selflessly of himself in order to protect and serve this nation," Kim's former Army team leader, SSG Ryan Henry Kell, wrote. "I ask that you give Mr Kim another chance and let him stay in the country that I know he loves."

Read the full letters—from Kell, Kim's Army psychologist, and his VA manager—here.