WASHINGTON _ A Venezuelan military officer who deserted his country's army to seek asylum in the United States faces deportation next week, back to the government the U.S. claims is a dictatorship that must be punished.
The juxtaposition reveals the perils the Trump administration faces trying to balance President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration polices while pledging to stand with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing President Nicolas Maduro's government that has driven the nation into economic and humanitarian peril.
First Lt. Helegner Tijera Moreno, 39, the father of a teenage son, faces his last detention hearing on Tuesday and could be deported after spending nearly two years in a New Mexico detention center.
