'So Happy To Be Back Home': Deported Army Veteran Returns To California
AZUSA (CBSLA) — An Army veteran is back home in California after being deported to Mexico in 2010.
"I'm so happy to be back home," Army specialist Fabian Rebolledo told reporters, after returning home to Azusa Wednesday.
Rebolledo served at Fort Bragg and as deployed to Kosovo in 1999 to work as a peacekeeper, retrieving bodies of Kosovan villagers who had been killed by Serbian forces. After being discharged, he returned to California and had a son.
In 2007, he was convicted of depositing a bad check from an employer and later deported. But in 2015, a change in state law made it possible for Rebolledo's felony fraud charge to be reduced to a misdemeanor.
With the help of UCI Law's Immigrant Rights Clinic, Rebolledo's case was reopened last month and an immigration judge restored his green card, allowing him to come home.
Rebolledo says he wants to now work on behalf of other veterans who have been deported.