A veteran of the deported army in Mexico returns home to find his family

A US military veteran, who was deported to Mexico six years ago, crossed the US and Mexican border with pride wearing his army uniform and brown beret to reunite with his family.

Anxious to greet Fabian Rebolledo, 43, across the border in San Diego were his parents, siblings and his 18-year-old son, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The family returned home to Azusa, California.

Rebolledo was deported to Mexico in 2012 after the authorities claimed to have cashed a check for $ 750 two years earlier. He insisted that he had received the check for the construction work he had done and that he did not know that it was fraudulent.

His battle with the US immigration system has been helped by the University of California, the Irvine Immigrant Rights Clinic and other advocacy groups.

"We fought for this Constitution, not only for our own families, but for everyone in the United States, so that they can walk freely," said Rebolledo. "There are a lot of veterans who need our help."

As a boy, he grew up near Mexico City where he shared a small house with his family of seven. His older brothers and sisters and his father first came to the United States and sent him at the age of 13 to settle in El Monte, California, a city located at the United States. East of Los Angeles.

The Daily News reported that Rebolledo had dropped out of school to work before joining the army. A recruiter "brainwashed" him into believing that he would automatically become a citizen, he told reporters.

He was a legal resident at the time.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Rebolledo was stationed in Fort Bragg and deployed to Kosovo for a peacekeeping mission, where he cleared landmines and bodies of villagers killed by Serb forces.

When Rebolledo was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, 2000 miles from the city where he was born, he slept in the street before finding housing and support among other deported veterans.

His son Derick, who was 12 years old when his father left, said, "Dad, you're a soldier, you can do it.

Rebolledo began defending the interests of those who suffered from the same situation and helped to create a mural project at the Friendship Park in Tijuana and met and married his wife.

With the adoption of the Prop. In California in 2015, a UCI clinic team was able to reduce Rebolledo's fraud charges from one crime to one.

Three years of paperwork and judicial petitions followed before his deportation case was dismissed in August and his legal resident status was reinstated.

Rebolledo's lawyers are working to recover his veteran benefits and get a passport for his wife to take him to the United States, the Daily News reported.

"Step by step," said Rebolledo. "But I'm excited for what will follow."