A Navy veteran and former F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot is mounting a primary challenge against Rep. Rich McCormick in Georgia's 7th Congressional District, saying the deportation of Army veteran Godfrey Wade was the breaking point that drove him into the race. Tony Kozycki, an attorney and former naval officer, told Military.com in a Tuesday interview that months of unanswered outreach to McCormick's office left him no choice but to file.
Wade, a lawful permanent resident who served in the Army during the Cold War, was deported after a prior removal order tied to a missed immigration hearing. The removal went forward while an appeal to reopen his case was still pending. No special legal protections shielded him because he had worn the uniform.
The case sits at the intersection of two issues conservatives care deeply about: honoring military service and enforcing immigration law with basic procedural fairness. Kozycki is betting that voters in the suburban stretch north of Atlanta will see a system that failed a man who served this country, and a congressman who wouldn't pick up the phone.
What happened to Godfrey Wade
The circumstances of Wade's removal follow a pattern that Georgetown Law's Sophia Genovese described as disturbingly routine. Genovese, a supervising attorney and clinical teaching fellow at the university's Center for Applied Legal Studies, said notices for immigration hearings sometimes go to the wrong address, or never arrive at all. When the recipient misses the hearing, a removal order can follow by default.
Genovese told Military.com:
"This is a very common situation. You can't know what you don't know."
She added a blunt legal reality that should concern anyone who believes military service ought to count for something in this country:
"There are no special protections for veterans."
That means a veteran who missed a hearing notice, possibly through no fault of his own, can be processed out of the country on the same conveyor belt as anyone else. Wade's appeal to reopen his case was still live when the government removed him. The exact date of his deportation, his current location, and the court or agency handling his appeal remain unclear from available reporting.
Immigration enforcement is essential. Americans rightly demand that the federal government detain and remove people who are in the country illegally. But a lawful permanent resident who served in the U.S. military and had a pending appeal is not the same as someone who crossed the border last week. The system should be able to tell the difference.
Kozycki's challenge to McCormick
Kozycki said he reached out to McCormick's congressional office multiple times seeking help reviewing Wade's deportation. Those calls went unanswered for months, he told Military.com.
That silence, Kozycki said, is what turned frustration into a campaign filing.
"What pushed me over the edge was the Godfrey Wade case. I told them that if they weren't willing to help, I would run against him."
McCormick, a physician and military veteran himself, has represented Georgia's 7th District since 2023. During his time in Congress he has emphasized national security, defense policy, and military readiness. Military.com reached out to his office for comment on Kozycki's challenge and Wade's case but received no response.
The silence is notable. McCormick's military background and defense-focused record would seem to make a deported veteran's case a natural fit for constituent service. Kozycki is framing the congressman's inaction as a values question, not just a scheduling oversight.
"I don't think we have shared values in that sense."
Kozycki said that if elected, he would introduce private legislation directing the Department of Homeland Security to reopen Wade's case and allow him to receive a hearing. Private bills, legislation written to address a single individual's circumstances, are rare but not unprecedented when standard bureaucratic channels fail a constituent.
A failed amendment and a broader gap
The timing of Kozycki's entry into the race coincides with a broader legislative fight. Earlier this week, Democratic Rep. Norma Torres introduced a congressional amendment to military legislation that would have expanded due process protections for noncitizen veterans facing deportation. The Republican majority voted it down.
That vote underscores the political difficulty of the issue. Republicans are rightly skeptical of proposals that could weaken enforcement or create new carve-outs that get exploited. But the question Torres's amendment raised, whether veterans who served lawfully deserve a procedural safeguard before removal, is not the same question as whether the border should be open. Conflating the two does a disservice to the men and women who raised their right hand.
In February, Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Wade was "entitled to due process" and urged federal officials to reconsider the deportation. Scott's remarks drew attention to the case but produced no visible policy change.
The broader immigration landscape remains volatile. Across the country, federal agents continue large-scale enforcement operations, and ICE has taken custody of illegal immigrants accused of violent crimes, including cases involving the deaths of law enforcement officers. Those operations are necessary and overdue. The challenge is ensuring that the system's machinery doesn't grind up people who played by the rules, especially those who served.
The primary field
Kozycki is not the only Democrat eyeing McCormick's seat. The primary field includes Larry Long, a former Environmental Protection Agency mediator with more than two decades of experience in environmental policy and dispute resolution; Case Norton, a filmmaker and union camera technician running on labor rights and economic issues; and Jayson Toweh, an environmental scientist and doctoral student focused on public health, veterans services, and access to care.
The primary is scheduled for May. Kozycki is leaning hard on his military and legal credentials to separate himself from the pack. A former F/A-18 pilot and practicing attorney, he said his campaign is shaped by his own experience navigating the Department of Veterans Affairs system, a bureaucracy that has tested the patience of generations of service members.
He also raised concerns about U.S. military operations tied to tensions with Iran, framing his candidacy around broader national security questions. On domestic spending, Kozycki struck a note that could appeal to fiscal conservatives as well.
"Anything that's approved by Congress is going to have defined objectives and goals."
Whether that message gains traction in a suburban district north of Atlanta, one that McCormick has held since 2023, will depend on whether voters see Wade's case as a one-off bureaucratic failure or a symptom of something larger.
The real question
Conservatives have spent years, rightly, demanding that the federal government enforce immigration law. The public has watched as illegal immigrants with multiple deportations committed violent acts against Americans, including veterans. Accountability and enforcement are not optional.
But enforcement without basic procedural safeguards for lawful residents who served in uniform is not strength. It is carelessness. A system that can deport an Army veteran while his appeal is still pending, because a hearing notice may have gone to the wrong address, is a system that needs a fix, not a defense.
McCormick's office has had months to respond to Kozycki's outreach and to Military.com's request for comment. The silence speaks for itself. A congressman who campaigns on military readiness and defense policy should be able to answer a straightforward question: Does a veteran who served this country deserve a hearing before he's put on a plane?
Several open questions remain. What court or agency was handling Wade's appeal? What was the exact timeline between the missed hearing notice and the removal? And why did McCormick's office decline, or simply fail, to engage with a constituent raising a veteran's case? Those answers matter, and voters in Georgia's 7th District deserve to hear them before May.
Courts have upheld accountability in high-profile immigration cases when the facts demanded it. The same principle should apply in reverse: when the system fails someone who earned the right to be heard, accountability should run uphill, not just down.
A country that asks men and women to risk their lives in uniform owes them, at minimum, a hearing before it shows them the door. That shouldn't be a partisan position.
