TAMPA, Fla. — Florida veteran Paul Canton believes his years-long fight to become a legal American citizen could rest with President-elect Donald Trump.
“I am hopeful with the new administration, that they will hear my pleas to legalize,” he told us recently. “I'm hoping that with a change, maybe we’ll get different people looking at it and get a positive outcome,” he said.
This summer, we first told you about the former U.S. Marine’s five-year-long battle to become a U.S. citizen after serving the country honorably.
Canton, who joined the U.S. Marines in the early 1990s, said he was recruited with the promise of citizenship when he was discharged.
“I was told if I got an honorable discharge, then I would get citizenship at the end of my tour. I got out and assumed I had citizenship,” he told us from his home in Ocala earlier this summer.
But nearly three decades later, during a trip to renew his Florida driver's license, Canton discovered he wasn’t here legally.
Since then, his fight to become a legal American citizen has been a losing battle.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has repeatedly rejected the veteran, stating that while he was recruited during the Persian Gulf War, a designated period of hostility, he was not called for active duty until after that period of hostility ended.
As a result, according to the federal government, Canton is ineligible for citizenship as a foreign veteran.
Canton and his attorney took the case to federal court, and it remains there, hanging by a thread. [A federal judge recently determined that the courts do not have jurisdiction to decide an individual’s citizenship eligibility].
A few months ago, US Congresswoman Kathy Castor responded to Canton’s plight with outrage and surprise.
“He should be treated like royalty in this country,” she told us.
But to date, Castor hasn’t offered any real solutions.
Canton has also sent handwritten letters to President Biden, but those letters remain unanswered. As a result, Canton hopes that fresh eyes in the Oval Office will give his citizenship case a fresh start.
When asked if he was concerned Trump’s pledge to deport millions of illegal immigrants could impact him, Canton responded, “No, because I am a war veteran, and I served this country and legally enlisted and went through with an honorable discharge. I'm just asking for what I've already earned,” he said.
Canton added that he is not concerned about being deported because he’s technically considered stateless.
“I’ve got nowhere to go, being stateless. Where are they going to send me? All my family's here, both my boys and my stepson,” he said. “I don't think the administration would be that heartless to separate a war veteran from their family members. It just comes down to having somebody who has the proper power to look at the paperwork and say, hey, yes, it's good.”
On Thursday, Republican U.S. Congressman Gus Bilirakis talks to us about Canton’s citizenship battle. He described what could finally make this American veteran an American citizen.
