On a summer evening in 2012, I walked through the Skid Row section of Los Angeles with a man and his son. As we walked past the many homeless people in this area, they described to me how they wanted to create a mural project for homeless veterans there.

Moved by their genuine conviction I agreed to embark upon this endeavor with them.

That man was Fabian Rebolledo. As we walked, Rebolledo—who is a U.S. military veteran—described to me his own personal experiences with homelessness, substance abuse, marital and legal troubles. After more than a decade of nightmares, flashbacks, violent outbursts and self-medication, he was beginning to heal and wanted to share his process with fellow veterans.

I left Los Angeles with an overwhelming desire to create this mural project. Unfortunately, Rebolledo was deported from the United States three days after our meeting, and our project didn’t happen.

A soldier’s story

Rebolledo was born in Mexico and arrived in the United States as a teenager, growing up in Southern California. He eventually gained permanent residency status and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1994. Rebolledo, promised automatic citizenship by military recruiters, joined the ranks of thousands of non-citizen military personnel serving in this country’s armed services. Contrary to the promises made to him, Rebolledo never got his citizenship.

During his six-year military career, Rebolledo was deployed as a peacekeeper in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, witnessing the horrors of ethnic cleansing. He has described having to remove the bodies of murdered civilians, which had been thrown into the potable water tanks; the torture of detainees carried out by peacekeeping forces; and the constant suffering of children. These images have been the subject of countless nightmares over the past 20 years.

Honorably discharged from the Army in 2000, Rebolledo returned to California with his young wife and son. He started his own construction contracting business, and began living his version of the “American Dream.” With the pressures of a young family, new business and the unrecognized trauma of his military experiences, Rebolledo turned to alcohol to self-medicate his pain. He would eventually seek help from the Department of Veterans Affairs who diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but not before he had done much damage to his personal life.

He was charged with a two DUI’s and in 2007 was convicted of felony forgery involving a bad check written to his business. He unwisely agreed to a plea agreement for the felony forgery conviction, which was a deportable offense.

After his deportation in 2012, Rebolledo settled into Rosarito, Mexico. There he found solidarity and camaraderie with fellow veterans who had been deported from the United States. He also created a mural project for deported veterans, helped to build a deported veteran support house, and become an advocate for his fellow veterans who have been deported or are facing deportation.

Another chance

After surviving in Mexico for the past 3 years, hope has appeared on the horizon for not only Rebolledo, but many people convicted of felonies, in the form of California Proposition 47.

Proposition 47 is a reduced penalties law that was approved by California voters in 2014. The initiative reduces the classification of most “nonserious and nonviolent property and drug crimes” from a felony to a misdemeanor. It represents a form of social justice for the many thousands of Californians who have felony convictions, which have resulted in loss of their freedom and opportunity as citizens.

On May 6 in a courtroom in Pomona, California, a lawyer representing Rebolledo presented a petition to have his 2007 felony conviction re-sentenced to a misdemeanor under Proposition 47.

On June 10, Rebolledo will have his hearing in Pomona, and hopefully return home.

For Part Two of Fabian’s story, read the June 18, 2015 issue of El Tecolote.

Story by: Amos Gregory