MIAMI — The cancer-stricken father of a U.S. Marine serving in Afghanistan was arrested at his Florida home last week and is scheduled for deportation to his native Hungary.
The detention of Janos Lutz, 53, has outraged his family, including his son, Pfc. Janos V. "Johnny" Lutz, a machine-gunner serving in Helmand province.
"We are out here fighting . . . and I find out the United States of America is deporting my dad?" Lutz, 21, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Afghanistan. "I feel anger, betrayal, rage. But you can't lose concentration out here."
Department of Homeland Security officials confirm that the elder Lutz is being held at the Krome Detention Center in Miami but have provided no details.
Lutz, a former truck driver, has lived in the United States since 1983. He is a legal permanent resident, according to his ex-wife, Janine Lutz.
She said Lutz told her that an immigration officer cited his failure to show up for a March hearing as the reason for his detention.
The March hearing apparently concerned deportation, but Lutz told her that he had not received notice of the hearing.
Janine Lutz said there was 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.
Ibraham Ghantous, a Coral Gables, Fla., immigration attorney representing the family, said he has confirmed that Lutz is being held on a previous order of 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 ex-husband was charged with grand larceny in 1987 after what she described as an attempt to shoplift goods from a Sears store. He pleaded guilty and served six months' probation. Janine Lutz speculated that the deportation proceedings stemmed from that incident.
Lutz also has been arrested three times for driving while intoxicated, most recently in 2002, state records show.
"This is an unbelievable nightmare," Janine Lutz said.
On Thursday, Janine Lutz wrote to both of Florida's U.S. senators, Bill Nelson and George LeMieux; Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart; urging them to look into the case. Since then, she said, all but Crist have expressed concern and pledged to investigate.
