https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/nx-s1-53 ... itizenship
This week several dozen Venezuelan nationals were transferred from a U.S. immigration detention center in south Texas and boarded a deportation flight to their home country.
Among them was 39-year-old Jose Barco, a decorated American soldier who deployed twice to Iraq, saw horrific combat and received a Purple Heart after an explosion tossed him through the air and left him with a traumatic brain injury.
He was just four years old when his family left Venezuela,
Barco deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2004 with a unit from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colo. He was a private with Charlie Company, from the 1st Battalion of the 506th Regiment. His unit was in western Iraq, at a time of fierce fighting against insurgent forces and car bombs. While Barco was on patrol in November with his platoon, a car laden with explosives swerved and went airborne, erupting in flames.
Ryan Krebbs was the company medic. As he was treating a wounded soldier amid the dust and smoke, he spotted Barco lifting the front end of the burning car, which had two soldiers pinned underneath it. "They were unconscious when he pulled them out," Krebbs remembered. "[Barco] was on fire after lifting the car."
Barco said he remembered none of that, only being thrown against a wall.
"I kind of remember the impact of the explosion," Barco told the PBS series Frontline, which aired a story in 2010 about his unit called The Wounded Platoon. "They told me I was just walking around. Walking around in circles or whatever, just cursing out loud. But I don't remember that."
Barco was treated for burns to his hands and thigh, as well as a lacerated lip. But Frontline reported there was no record that he lost consciousness for several minutes or any suspicion of a possible brain injury. So Barco soon received further treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas for burns but no treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI).
"I distinctly remember Jose Barco completing and submitting his application for United States citizenship," Hutchinson wrote in a February 2025 memo for immigration officials. "He was fully eligible and with processing timelines at USCIS at the time should have been approved by the end of calendar year 2006. … At some point the packet was lost and we have not been able to find a chain of custody document."
