TIJUANA, Mexico ¨C Jose Roberto Segovia Benitez knew at a young age he wanted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps and was told, like many foreign-born recruits, that his service would put him on a fast track to U.S. citizenship.
He served in Afghanistan, and then Iraq in 2003 following the U.S.-led invasion ¡ª suffering a traumatic brain injury from a blast caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) ¡ª and was honorably discharged in 2004.
But Segovia Benitez fell on hard times when he returned to the United States, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction, eventually spending eight years behind bars for offenses including assault.
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