TAMPA, Fla. — "I'm disheartened that the law of the country I served is not taking into account my military service or extenuating circumstances," said Paul Canton over the latest court rulings that leave the former U.S. Marine on the losing side of his five-year-long citizenship battle.
Canton said he was recruited into the military under false promises of citizenship three decades ago and had been fighting for his right to stay in America for the past five years when he discovered he wasn’t here legally.
"I gave the government a blank check for my body up until and including death, and with the agreement, I get citizenship when I got out," he told us from his home near Ocala.
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After his citizenship application and appeals were denied twice, Canton decided to take his case to federal court last year. But last month, a federal judge tossed two of three charges Canton brought against the federal government.
The judge essentially ruled that the courts have no jurisdiction over who U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approves and who it denies.
"We weren't asking for anything but what we've already earned," Canton said.
The issue is when Canton enlisted in the U.S. Marines versus when he served. Canton was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia.
According to federal immigration law, foreigners who honorably serve during a period of hostility are eligible to apply for citizenship when they get out.
While Canton enlisted during the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, he wasn't called for active duty until just after that period of hostility ended.
"We shouldn't even be having this conversation where we are cutting hairs to see when this marine served. The point is he served, and he served honorably,” said Elizabeth Ricci, a Tallahassee-based immigration attorney working Canton's case pro bono.
Ricci recently filed an amended federal complaint in court in hopes of this latest attempt to help Canton get naturalized sticks. Ricci believes not only is Canton being unjustly denied citizenship after serving honorably in America's armed forces, but Canton was illegally recruited into the military because his visa had expired at the time he enlisted.
"Why is the military letting people in who are not eligible to serve, and then when they do, why are they not righting it on the other end when these vets find out they're undocumented? It's a total mockery. It's a joke," Ricci said about the country's broken immigration system and lack of communication between the immigration system and the U.S. military.
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After we shared Canton's story, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., expressed her interest in helping Canton become naturalized.
"For Mr. Canton, to serve in the Marine Corps for eight years and to be left high and dry by the United States of America that he was brave enough to defend, he should be treated like royalty in this country," Castor told investigative reporter Katie LaGrone last month.
Canton, who's considered stateless because he lost his Australian citizenship when he joined the U.S. military, recently started writing letters to the White House, hoping to get the attention of President Joe Biden.
The Biden Administration has supported several efforts to help foreign veterans return to the U.S. and get citizenship after they served honorably for America but were deported.
When asked what Canton hopes the president can do for him, Canton responded, "an Executive Order to grant me citizenship so I can move beyond this. I've got no country. I don't really understand why this big fight and this big push to deny me what I've already earned."
