MAPLEWOOD — Dardar Paye feels betrayed.

Ten years ago, he was serving in the U.S. Army, manning checkpoints and searching for bombs in war-torn Kosovo. On his second overseas tour, he thought he was a U.S. soldier, sworn to defend the Constitution.

But now, Paye, who immigrated to the United States from Liberia as a teenager, faces a legal paradox: The same country he vowed to defend wants to deport him, labeling him a "foreign-born person" with a criminal record.

"I joined the Army because I really wanted to be part of this country," said Paye, 32, who lives in Maplewood. "If God wanted me to die, I would have died. I always thought I was a U.S. citizen."

Paye has been caught up in a controversial section of a 1996 immigration law that expands the list of crimes for which non-citizens can be deported.

Up to 8,000 non-citizens enlist in the U.S. military every year and serve alongside American troops. As of May 2010, there were 16,966 non-citizens on active duty, according to the Department of Defense. The military does not allow illegal immigrants to enlist.

If non-citizens die while serving, they are granted citizenship and given a full military funeral. If they return home and get into legal trouble, they run the risk of being deported.

Now, advocates for non-citizen service members want to change the law. Attorneys are taking cases like Paye’s to court, arguing an immigrant who serves in the Armed Forces should be considered a U.S. national and protected from deportation.

"These are people who served us — whether they are model human beings or not," said Paye’s attorney, Craig Shagin of Harrisburg, Pa. "They served in our uniforms, in our wars. If they were POWs, they’d be considered American prisoners."

Advocates estimate thousands of veterans have been deported or are being detained. Government officials say they have no tally but plan to begin tracking the numbers.

Most immigrants serve with distinction. According to the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center for the Navy and Marine Corps, non-citizens are far more likely to complete their enlistment obligations successfully than their U.S.-born counterparts.

APPEALING DEPORTATION

Paye fled Liberia, then in the midst of a brutal civil war, to join his mother in the United States in 1991, according to court papers.

He eventually settled in New Jersey, attending high schools in Newark and Maplewood, where he was a star football player at Columbia High School before graduating in 1996.

He served three years in the U.S. Army, including a stint in Kuwait, then spent another 1 1/2 years with the New Jersey Army National Guard.

But his life took a turn in 2004, when he was convicted of six weapons offenses, including two involving firearms dealing. He served 41 months in federal prison. In 2005, he was convicted of a drug possession charge and served time in state prison.

"I feel sorry for being around the wrong people," Paye said. "I know better than that."

He is appealing his deportation to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Advocates and immigration attorneys say that before the 1996 Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, few immigrant veterans were deported because immigration authorities could take their service into consideration.

But the new law added crimes such as drug possession for sale to the list of crimes that could lead to deportation of a legal immigrant.

"Drugs, anger management, weapons charges, that’s what a lot of vets are getting caught for, and there is no relief," said Margaret Stock, a recently retired Army reservist and immigration attorney who taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point. "The 1996 law really put the nails in their coffin."

Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said identifying and removing dangerous criminals from the country is an agency priority — and the cases of people with prior military service are carefully reviewed.

In the meantime, the military has started to offer a fast-track to citizenship to immigrants currently serving in the armed forces. Most who enlist in the Army likely can become citizens by the end of their basic training, Stock said. Other branches are expected to join the effort by the end of the year.

But those efforts are too late for Paye.

"In Liberia, I got nobody to go to," he said. "I’ll be looking over my shoulder, always worrying."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.