President Donald Trump’s administration has placed former U.S. service members in deportation proceedings and arrested others for immigration violations over the past year, according to federal data obtained by The New York Times and shared in follow-up reporting published Tuesday.
The data shows that 34 former military members began the deportation process, and 125 were arrested as immigration enforcement increased and earlier protections for veterans and military families were reduced.
This policy change departs from the guidance issued by ICE in 2022 during the Biden administration. That directive stated that a noncitizen’s prior U.S. military service was a “significant mitigating factor” in enforcement decisions.
In April 2025, ICE replaced it with a new policy stating that military service alone does not automatically protect someone from immigration enforcement. The updated directive also no longer offers the same explicit consideration to the relatives of service members and veterans.
I risked my life to defend American values. Trump is trampling on them.
Americans killed in the street. Innocent civilians rounded up. Veterans deported, kids detained.
Every freedom-loving, Patriotic American knows how wrong this is.
It’s on ALL of us to fight back. pic.twitter.com/Z11RBV9UEs
— Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 (@PatRyanUC) February 27, 2026
Those supporting deported veterans say the change now affects people who served in the military but later faced risks because they never finished the process to become citizens. ImmDef, a nonprofit legal group that represents deported veterans, points out that while immigrant service members often qualify for a quicker path to citizenship, many never complete it.
As a result, they remain at risk of being arrested and deported even after honorable service. Some deported veterans served in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, and the post-9/11 wars, and being sent out of the country can cut them off from medical care and military benefits earned through their service.
An Associated Press report last year stated how this vulnerability has played out. It recounted the story of Army veteran Sae Joon Park, who came to the United States from South Korea as a child, earned a Purple Heart after being shot in Panama, and later lived for years under deferred action due to a drug case linked to PTSD.
Park told AP that after checking in annually with immigration officials for 14 years, he learned in June that he faced removal again and chose to self-deport rather than risk prolonged detention. “They allowed me to join, serve the country, front line, taking bullets for this country. That should mean something,” Park said.
Update on Marlon Parris, veteran arrested by ICE: He will remain in confinement in Florence, AZ at least until a March 24th hearing where the judge will decide whether he is removable. His advocates told me “We have about 30 days to raise some more hell.” https://t.co/BoWl7CKEeC
— Jimmy Jenkins (@JimmyJenkins) February 27, 2025
AP also reported that Army veteran Marlon Parris, a green-card holder from Trinidad who served six years and received three Army Commendation Medals, was detained in Arizona in January and later found deportable by an immigration judge.
His case, like Park’s, has been used by lawyers and veterans’ groups as an example of how war heroes who risked their lives for the U.S can still face removal after discharge if they are not U.S. citizens.
Retired Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, a lawyer who helps veterans facing deportation, told AP that Trump’s mass-deportation agenda did not spare military families. “It harms military recruiting, military readiness, and the national security of our country,” she said. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran and Illinois Democrat, told News21 that the issue affects people “who were promised a chance at citizenship by our government in exchange for their service.”
There is still no complete public record of how many veterans are currently in removal proceedings. A 2019 Government Accountability Office report found that 250 veterans were placed in removal proceedings between 2013 and 2018.
More recent DHS reports cited by AP showed five veterans were deported in the first half of 2022 and three were deported in calendar year 2019. In June, members of Congress asked federal officials to provide updated totals, noting that some estimates put the overall number of deported veterans at 10,000.
