A Hawaii veteran who left the country under the immigration crackdown now has a real path back, good news for him and a small win for veterans caught in deportation cases.

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul pardoned Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart veteran who left for South Korea last year.
• Park lost his green card over a 2011 drug and bail conviction, but his Purple Heart status had shielded him from removal.
• That protection ended under the Trump administration, and he self-deported rather than be detained.
• The pardon clears the main obstacle his lawyers faced in trying to reopen the case.

Outlook: His lawyers now go to the Board of Immigration Appeals to try to throw out the removal order, a process that could take months with no guarantee he gets home.