2:03
- ABC News
- September 14, 2026
Pentagon drawing recruits from ICE-targeted groups
The Pentagon is recruiting green-card holders at a rapidly growing pace.
2:03
Earning citizenship through enlisting into the U.S. military has long been a recruiting incentive, as troops can apply for expedited citizenship after a year of service. The number of troops becoming U.S. citizens through military service has also more than tripled since 2020, DHS data reviewed by ABC News shows, with more than 16,000 service members naturalized in 2024.
The Philippines, Jamaica and Mexico were among the leading countries of origin for those newly naturalized troops.
The potential recruiting pool is significant. There are some 13 million green-card holders in the U.S. as of January 2025, up by 340,000 from a year earlier, federal data shows, with many of them coming from mixed-status families.
Nearly 50,000 foreign nationals currently serve in the U.S. military, while another 125,000 foreign national veterans live in the United States, according to a May 2026 Congressional Research Service report.
The military has offered immigrants an expedited path to citizenship since at least the Civil War, when Congress eased naturalization requirements for foreign-born troops. During each of the world wars, more than 100,000 service members became U.S. citizens through their military service.
\"It has long been a way to fill the ranks,\" said Katherine Kuzminski, an expert on military recruitment and the director of studies at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Center for a New American Security.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ice-arrest-rt-jt-260911_1789159037068_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
Non-citizen recruits and Hispanic troops are not the same population. But both trends point to a military becoming more dependent on communities with close ties to the immigration system. The rise in Hispanic enlistment is one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in the rank and file in a generation. In the Army, by far the Pentagon's largest service, Hispanic recruits made up nearly 27% of new soldiers last year, up from just under 20% in 2020.
That growth in recruiting from immigrant communities comes as the military is largely climbing out of its yearslong recruiting slump following a President Joe Biden-era push to pour more money, personnel and attention into recruiting, but the underlying challenge remains consistently finding enough young Americans who can qualify to enlist.
The Pentagon estimates only about 23% of Americans ages 17 to 24 are eligible to serve. Applicants must also pass an SAT-style entrance exam, which has long been a major hurdle, including for some recruits who speak English as a second language. Defense officials have discussed for years whether to offer a Spanish-language version of the exam, according to current and former officials familiar with those conversations, though those deliberations have frequently concluded that troops must have a proficiency in English.
The recruiting pool is poised to shrink even further. The number of Americans turning 18 is projected to fall 13% between 2025 and 2041, primarily driven by declining birth rates following the Great Recession in 2008, according to research from the Center for a New American Security, putting even more pressure on the services to reach a diverse pool of the population.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is being done at military bases themselves.
Last year, ICE agents were stationed at three Marine Corps bases to assist with base security, including Camp Pendleton, California; Quantico, Virginia; and Marine Corps Base Hawaii. A quarter of Marines are Hispanic, according to Pentagon demographic data.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/camp-pendleton-gty-jt-260911_1789160052062_hpEmbed_3x2_384.jpg\")
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Mexican national who was deported after being stopped while trying to enter Camp Pendleton September last year to visit his pregnant daughter, according to court documents.
Esteban Rios Sosa had visited his daughter on the base repeatedly without incident, court documents show. His daughter lived there with her husband, a Marine. But during a visit last fall, Rios Sosa and his wife were stopped at the gate and ultimately deported. His wife was quickly released, but Rios Sosa remains in Mexico.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino of the Southern District of California ruled that Rios Sosa’s due process rights were violated since he had been deported without notice or without a hearing.
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