Cancer-stricken Davie dad of Marine in Afghanistan awaits deportation

[MyOwnNemesis]

I am torn with my feelings on this one. The Vet in me is really pulling for this young Marine and his family...But the other part of me is saying that Dad has a criminal history, is a less than stellar candidate for citizenship, and kick his *** out of the US. I don't know.

MIAMI - The cancer-stricken father of a U.S. Marine serving in Afghanistan was arrested at his Davie home this week and is slated for deportation to his native Hungary after failing to appear for a court hearing in March.

The detention of Janos Lutz, 53, has outraged his family, including his son Pfc. Janos V. Lutz, a machine gunner with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regimen in southern Helmand province.

"We are out here fighting our asses off, and I find out the United States of America is deporting my dad?" Lutz, 21, said Thursday in a telephone interview from his base camp in Afghanistan. "I feel anger, betrayal, rage. But you can't lose concentration out here."

Department of Homeland Security officials confirm that Lutz is being held at the Krome Detention Center in Miami but have provided no details.

Lutz, a former Coca-Cola truck driver, has lived in the United States since 1983. He is a legal permanent resident, according to his ex-wife Janine Lutz.

In a phone call from Krome Detention Center, Lutz told her that an immigration officer cited his failure to show up for a March hearing as the reason for his detention.

But Janine Lutz said there is nothing in her ex-husband's background that would warrant deportation to Hungary, where he has no relatives. "He doesn't have anything to hide," she said.

Lutz told his ex-wife that he never received a notice of the hearing.

Ibraham Ghantous, a Coral Gables immigration attorney representing the family, said he has confirmed that Lutz is being held on a previous order of removal, or deportation. "But I have not seen the file," said Ghantous, adding that he did not know the basis for the order.

Janine Lutz said her former husband was charged with grand larceny in 1987 after what she described as a failed attempt to shoplift merchandise from a Sears store. He pleaded guilty, and served six months probation. Lutz also has been arrested three times, in 1987, 1997 and in 2002, for driving while intoxicated, state records show.

On Thursday Janine Lutz wrote to Florida Sens. Bill Nelson and George LeMieux, Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and urged them to look into the case.

"This is an unbelievable nightmare," she said.

Born in Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Janos Lutz immigrated to the United States in 1983 "with dreams of having a family of his own," he ex-wife said. His mother died in childbirth, and his father died when he was 20.

Janos and Janine Lutz were married in 1987, and divorced 11 years later. They have two sons, Janos Victor, who enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Davie's Western High School, and Justin, 18, a student at Broward College.

Since being diagnosed with throat cancer in 1993, and having part of a lung removed five years later, Lutz has lived in a small rented room, Janine Lutz said. Adding to his physical woes are two broken heels he sustained in 2007 when he fell off a ladder while hanging Christmas decorations.

"He has the worst luck," said Janine Lutz, the CEO of a family concrete business in Opa-locka.

Janos Victor Lutz, called Johnny, said he applied for emergency leave after learning of his father's detention but was turned down. His unit is scheduled to return to the United States next month, but he fears that may be too late.

"My father raised me with morals and character, and that's why I'm here today," Johnny Lutz said Thursday. "My father was 100 percent behind my enlistment, and when they went to his room to arrest him they must have seen lots of pictures of me in uniform."

[manahmanah]

They never seem to put this much effort into deporting all of the illegal Mexicans that are sucking California dry.....

[MyOwnNemesis]

Yeah - that is the feeling in S. Fl - why are they targeting this guy when it is a target rich environment. A friend of mine told me "We gotta start somewhere." Can't argue I guess.

[Piggy]

Maybe he can move in with Obama's illegal alien Aunt that hasn't been deported.