A Korean-born United States Army veteran who self-deported to South Korea last year after spending nearly five decades in America has received a gubernatorial pardon, offering him renewed hope of returning to the country he served in combat. Sae Joon Park, 57, a Purple Heart recipient who was wounded twice during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, was among a wave of noncitizen military veterans displaced under President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement campaign. His case has drawn sustained national attention and now stands as a potential turning point in the broader debate over how the United States treats foreign-born veterans who served honorably but carry prior criminal records.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday that she had pardoned Park along with five other individuals, erasing two convictions he held in the state. The move does not guarantee Park's return to the United States, but it provides the legal foundation his attorney says is necessary to pursue the vacating of his removal order. For Park, who now lives in Busan, South Korea, with limited Korean language skills and two adult children still in the United States, the pardon represents the first concrete legal development in his favor since he boarded a one-way flight out of the country he had called home since childhood.
WHAT HAPPENED
Governor Hochul's pardon, issued Friday, erased two convictions Park had accumulated in New York: bail jumping in the second degree from 2009 and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree from 2007. In a statement accompanying the pardons, Hochul said Park and the five other individuals pardoned alongside him "have displayed positive changes in their lives and will dedicate themselves to bettering their communities — they earned their second chance through rehabilitation and can now establish their futures once again."
Park responded to the news through a statement issued by his attorney, Danicole Ramos. "I still cannot believe this has happened. I am incredibly grateful to Governor Hochul for giving me this chance and for recognizing that I am more than the mistakes I made many years ago," Park said. Ramos confirmed that while the pardon does not automatically restore Park's ability to return to the United States, it gives him legal grounds to seek the vacating of his existing removal order. "This pardon represents a tremendous step forward and gives Mr. Park and his family renewed hope that, after more than a year of separation, he may one day be able to return to the country he has called home since childhood and for which he put his life on the line," Ramos said, without specifying a timeline for any potential return.
KEY DETAILS
Park's path to self-deportation began at what was supposed to be a routine immigration check-in last June. According to Ramos, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer cited Park's prior removal order — which had been issued by an immigration judge in 2010 — and threatened to detain him on the spot. A deal was subsequently reached in which Park would not be immediately detained if he agreed to wear an ankle monitor and self-deport within three weeks. Faced with the prospect of indefinite detention, Park complied. After 49 years in America, he packed his life into two suitcases and a golf bag and boarded a one-way flight to South Korea.
Park left behind his two children — a son, 29, and a daughter, 25 — both of whom remain in the United States. He now resides in Busan, where his limited proficiency in Korean forces him to rely on relatives to help navigate daily paperwork and logistics. The Department of Homeland Security, when previously asked about Park's case, pointed to his criminal record as the basis for his deportation. As of the time of this reporting, the Department of Homeland Security had not responded to requests for comment regarding the impact of the pardon on Park's immigration status.
Park's case gained significant national visibility in December when lawmakers confronted then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a congressional hearing, pressing her on the treatment of veterans caught up in the immigration enforcement sweep. The exchange was described as contentious, and Park's situation was cited as emblematic of a broader pattern affecting noncitizen veterans who served the United States military but were never naturalized.
BACKGROUND
Sae Joon Park was born in South Korea and moved to the United States at the age of seven, traveling alone after his parents' divorce to join his mother in Miami. He later relocated to Southern California, where he graduated from high school and enlisted in the U.S. military. In 1989, Park participated in Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama. During a firefight, he was shot twice — once in the spine and once in the lower back. For those wounds sustained in combat, Park was awarded the Purple Heart.
Upon returning to the United States, Park struggled with what he would later come to understand as post-traumatic stress disorder. He turned to drug use as a means of managing the psychological and physical pain stemming from his combat injuries. In 2007, he was arrested while buying drugs in New York and was subsequently convicted of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. While on probation and facing court-ordered drug testing he feared he would fail, Park fled New York and returned to his family in Hawaii, missing a required court appearance. U.S. marshals later came to the family home, and Park's family persuaded him to turn himself in. He was convicted of second-degree bail jumping — classified as an aggravated felony under immigration law — and sentenced to prison in New York. He was released in 2011.
Upon his release, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting for him, acting on a removal order that had been issued by an immigration judge in 2010. After six months in ICE detention, Park was released and granted deferred action on his removal order, a form of prosecutorial discretion that deferred deportation without granting lawful immigration status. The decision was based on what his attorney described as his "equities of being a Purple Heart veteran." His green card, which he had held since arriving in the United States as a child, was revoked, and he was barred from traveling abroad. However, he was permitted to remain in the country and work legally. For 15 years, he did exactly that — until the June 2025 check-in that upended everything.
WHY IT MATTERS
Park's case sits at the intersection of two of the most politically charged issues in contemporary American life: immigration enforcement and the treatment of military veterans. His story raises fundamental questions about the obligations the United States holds toward individuals who served in its armed forces, were wounded in combat, and spent the overwhelming majority of their lives on American soil — yet were never naturalized as citizens. Park is not alone. He is among a documented number of noncitizen veterans who were either self-deported or formally expelled from the United States under the Trump administration's immigration enforcement expansion, a policy framework that critics argue failed to adequately account for military service and combat-related trauma when making deportation determinations.
The legal significance of the pardon extends beyond Park's individual circumstances. It establishes a potential precedent for how state-level executive clemency can interact with federal immigration enforcement, particularly in cases where prior criminal convictions served as the triggering basis for removal orders. Whether federal immigration authorities will honor the spirit of the pardon and move to vacate Park's removal order remains an open and consequential question. The Department of Homeland Security's silence on the matter, as of this reporting, does not provide clarity on how the agency intends to respond.
CURRENT STATUS
As of August 31, 2026, Sae Joon Park remains in Busan, South Korea, where he has lived since self-deporting more than a year ago. Governor Hochul's pardon has formally erased his two New York convictions, and his attorney Danicole Ramos has confirmed that the legal team intends to use the pardon as grounds to seek the vacating of his federal removal order. No timeline has been provided for when that process might conclude or whether it will ultimately succeed.
The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly commented on how the pardon affects Park's immigration status or whether the agency will take any steps to facilitate his return. Park's two children continue to reside in the United States. Whether the Purple Heart veteran will be reunited with them on American soil remains unresolved, pending the outcome of what his attorney has described as a process that is moving forward but without a guaranteed result.
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