Jeremy Dean Hinzman (born 1979 in Rapid City, South Dakota) is an Iraq War resister who was the first American deserter to seek refugee status in Canada. He enlisted in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and deserted in 2004 to avoid participating in the Iraq War. "He fled to Canada with his wife and preschool-age son. Now living in Toronto and working as a bike courier, Hinzman faces a court-martial and a possible five-year prison sentence if he returns to the United States. Hinzman said he sought refugee status because he opposed the war in Iraq on moral grounds and argued the U.S. invasion violated international human rights standards." He was one of the first to have his application for refugee status rejected—a decision he unsuccessfully appealed to the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. His request to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court was rejected in November 2007. At that time, he filed for a pre-removal risk assessment with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which determines if a denied refugee applicant would be subject to torture, death or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment if returned to their country of origin. Distinct from his application for refugee status, he also filed for permanent residency on "humanitarian and compassionate grounds." Using this approach, he achieved a major step forward on July 6, 2010. Military service Jeremy Hinzman voluntarily joined the U.S. Army early in 2001, completing basic combat training and airborne school in Fort Benning, Georgia. Along with his wife, Nga Nguyen, he began attending meetings of the Religious Society of Friends in January 2002. His newfound pacifist beliefs and the birth of his son, Liam, in May 2002, were among the reasons he cited for applying for conscientious objector status in August 2002. Amnesty International notes that Hinzman "took reasonable steps to register his conscientious objection through seeking non-combatant status in [August] 2002, an application which was rejected [April 2003]." This means that he tried for eight months, unsuccessfully, to be officially and legally referred to as a "conscientious objector". His unit was deployed to take part in the war in Afghanistan later in 2002. Hinzman fulfilled a non-combat role there while his conscientious objector application was being processed. It was ultimately denied, and he then returned to his regular unit, serving as its armorer. When his unit