From the American Revolution to Today: Let’s Remember the Immigrant Veterans Who Have Fought for America’s Defense and Freedom This Veterans Day

Veterans Day can’t be properly observed without also noting the vast, heroic contributions of immigrant service members to the United States military. In fact, while overall recruiting numbers shift over time, “the foreign born have been a constant presence in the U.S. armed forces,” the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) said last year. “As of 2022, nearly 731,000 U.S. veterans had been born outside the United States, representing 4.5 percent of the country’s 16.2 million veterans.”

“Reflecting a long history of service in the U.S. military, Mexican and Filipino immigrants comprised the largest groups of foreign-born veterans in 2022, representing 15 percent and 11 percent (or 111,000 and 84,000 individuals), respectively. Other top origin countries included Germany, Canada, and Cuba (see Figure 2),” MPI continued. “Naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents (LPRs, also known as green-card holders), and certain nationals of three Pacific Island countries in free association with the United States—the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau—are eligible for U.S. military service.”

And, “a long history of service in the U.S. military” is right. In fact, immigrant service members have carried the U.S. flag in their hearts and on their sleeves for more than two centuries, fighting in major conflicts since our country’s founding. “Hundreds of thousands of immigrants pledged to defend the United States with their lives in the Civil War, both World Wars, and conflicts like those in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq,” FWD.us said in a 2022 report. “Some of young America’s greatest heroes were foreigners,” the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) noted in 2017.

“When he arrived in New York from France on August 16, 1824, for a tour of the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution and compatriot of George Washington, was greeted with an official welcome and by thousands of Americans,” BPC said. “In his remarks, following those of the mayor, Lafayette said, ‘It is the pride of my heart to have been one of the earliest adopted sons of America.’ Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian military officer, was granted American citizenship for his service to the nation during the Revolution.”  Following the country’s birth, immigrants “continued to play a major role in the nation’s armed conflicts.”

During the American Civil War, more than 20% of Union soldiers were also foreign-born, mostly from Germany and Ireland. By the time the U.S. was involved in World War I, approximately half a million immigrants were serving in the U.S. military, BPC continued. “Foreigners have continued to serve in significant numbers since World War II.”

For many foreign-born U.S. veterans, military service has been an invaluable mechanism for gaining U.S. citizenship. “Between 1907 and 2018, 745,212 immigrants naturalized through military service,” the American Immigration Council said in 2019, with many taking advantage of an expedited pathway to citizenship established for immigrant service members by the U.S. Congress. In fiscal year 2024, nearly 16,300 immigrant service members were naturalized, “a 34% increase from the previous year,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said at that time.

“Since 2002, we have naturalized more than 187,000 members of the U.S. military, both at home and abroad,” USCIS further noted, with naturalization ceremonies taking place in more than two dozen nations.

And the service of many of these military members has been nothing short of heroic. “Of the more than 3,400 Medals of Honor awarded since the Civil War, 22% have gone to immigrants, according to the nonprofit National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP),” Military.com reported in 2020. Alfred V. Rascon, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who fought in the Vietnam War, was awarded a Silver Star for service a year before he ever became fully American on paper. He told Military.com that “issues of race, creed, ethnicity and country of birth tend to vanish in a combat zone, where the team is all that matters.”

Decades later, some of his former platoon members lobbied for Rascon to receive the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration. “At the White House on Feb. 8, 2000, then-President Bill Clinton bestowed the nation’s highest award for valor on Alfred Velazquez Rascon,” the report said.

Unfortunately, our nation has not always given its service members the respect they deserve. “Deported veterans” is a term that shouldn’t exist, yet it’s been the reality for some immigrant service members who’ve been exiled after putting their lives on the line for their country. Some reports have estimated that at least 200 immigrant veterans have been deported, many after struggling with PTSD and substance abuse issues that followed their deployment and return home.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) would reveal in a shocking 2019 report that “because ICE does not maintain complete electronic data on potentially removable veterans it encounters,” we actually don’t know how many service members have been deported. ICE also has policies in place that it’s supposed to follow in cases involving a military veteran, but the GAO found these were not being followed either.

Earlier this year, Sae Joon Park, an immigrant veteran and a recipient of a Purple Heart for injuries he sustained while deployed in Panama, was forced to self-deport to a country he hadn’t considered his home for decades. Like many other military veterans, Park struggled with PTSD related to his injuries. “Though his body began to heal, he said his mind did not,” NPR reported in June. “Back then, Park didn’t know he was dealing with PTSD. So, he never sought help and the trauma slowly took a toll. He eventually turned to drugs to cope.”

His attempt to self-medicate would eventually lead to prison time, the revocation of his green card, and a deportation order. As veterans groups and lawmakers have said, service members in crisis need compassion and care, not to get kicked out of the country they served. Fortunately, he was allowed to remain here as long as he regularly checked in with immigration officials. He returned to Hawaii, got a good job, and continued raising his kids. But that changed this year, when he was told he “would be detained and deported unless he left voluntarily within the next few weeks,” NPR continued.

“ I can’t believe that this is happening in America,” Park told the outlet at the time. “That blows me away, like a country that I fought for.” But Park is not alone. Carlos Gomez Perez, a fellow immigrant veteran and recipient of the prestigious Silver Star, has been among the voices speaking out in defense of his community.

Gomez Perez told East County Magazine that he’s participated in pro-immigrant rallies “because I need to step up to speak for the ones who cannot speak for themselves. I know what it feels like to be undocumented and having to be living in the shadows for fear of being deported. I’m no longer that 9-year-old undocumented boy that had no voice. I’m now a 42-year-old Marine combat veteran from Fallujah who’s been shot twice and awarded the Silver Star, which is the third highest medal of honor.”

This Veterans Day, we thank immigrant military members, and all military members and their families, for their service to our nation. But thanks must also include ensuring they have the benefits and citizenship they’ve deservedly earned, and are able to live in the country they bravely fought for. They kept their promise to protect this country. This country must do the same.