As stories of military family members being detained by immigration authorities pile up, dozens of Democrats are launching an investigation into how the military’s traditional protections against deportation for noncitizen service members and their families are crumbling under the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
The investigation kicked off with a letter, signed by 61 Democrats from the Senate and House, sent Tuesday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other immigration officials.
In the letter, the Democrats demand that the DHS and Pentagon answer dozens of questions by mid-September, including how many noncitizen service members, veterans and family members have been detained or referred for deportation since January.
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“These alarming accounts contravene decades of precedent and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy establishing noncitizens’ military service as a mitigating factor when considering immigration enforcement against military service members, veterans and their immediate family members,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained exclusively by Military.com ahead of its public release. “We demand an explanation for why DHS is betraying its promises to service members who play a key role in protecting U.S. national security.”
The investigation is being led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.; Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H.; and Delia Ramirez, D-Ill. Duckworth, Houlahan and Goodlander are veterans, while Warren is the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee.
Since Democrats are in the minority in both chambers of Congress, they do not have subpoena power, limiting their ability to compel the executive branch to answer their questions.
But the lawmakers who sent the letter are promising that the missive is the start of an investigation.
"The Trump administration is blatantly disrespecting our troops and putting our national security at risk by backtracking on immigration protections for military families and veterans,” Warren said in a statement. “Congressional Democrats are going to use every tool possible to hold the administration accountable for this unprecedented attack on our own military.”
The probe comes after numerous news reports, including on Military.com, about immigration officials targeting military families and veterans, and ignoring benefits offered to troops and families to protect them from deportation.
As of 2024, more than 40,000 noncitizens were serving in the U.S. military, while another 115,000 noncitizens were veterans living in the United States, according to a Congressional Research Service report from that year.
Traditionally, allowing noncitizens to serve in the military has been seen as a way to fill gaps in specialized skills such as foreign languages. In exchange, those service members have been offered an expedited path to citizenship and protections from deportation for themselves and immediate family members.
But the Trump administration has made several policy changes that are chipping away at that framework.
Military.com reported in July that Marine Corps recruiters have been told to stop promoting an immigration benefit known as military parole-in-place.
The parole-in-place program allows spouses, parents and children of service members to temporarily stay in the U.S. while they pursue more permanent legal status. Created in 2007 during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the program was intended to remove a distraction for service members fighting overseas who might be worried about their families potentially being deported.
But a spokesperson for the Marines told Military.com in July that it was improper for recruiters to promote the program since it is administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and not the Corps.
That came after the Trump administration said in February it “will no longer exempt classes or categories” of migrants from potential deportation, including military family members and veterans. And in April, the administration rescinded a policy that said military service should be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether to pursue immigration enforcement against troops or their immediate families and replaced it with a policy that stresses “military service alone does not automatically exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”
Amid those policy changes, anecdotes have poured in of troops’ and veterans’ family members being caught in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement operations.
In June, a father of two active-duty Marines and one Marine veteran was beaten by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when he was detained at his landscaping job outside of an IHOP in California.
That same month, the wife of a Marine veteran was detained at an appointment for her green card application. And last month, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who co-signed the letter to Hegseth and Noem, said he met with a mother of an active-duty Marine who was detained by ICE while caring for her two-year-old grandson at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.
Those cases followed the detention of a Coast Guardsman’s wife and the deportation of a soldier’s wife earlier this year.
“The Trump administration’s detention and deportation of noncitizens who have served the U.S. military and their families threaten U.S. national security interests and erode the U.S. military’s credibility when it makes promises to its service members who have put their lives on the line for our country,” the lawmakers wrote in their Tuesday letter.
In addition to Hegseth and Noem, the lawmakers’ letter was addressed to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow, and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
The Pentagon declined to comment to Military.com on the letter, saying it will “only respond directly to the authors or members of Congress.” DHS, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond to requests for comment, while ICE referred questions to the DHS.
On top of asking for data on detentions, the letter asks the DHS for details on how it is implementing the administration’s policy changes and what analysis was done on how those policy changes could affect military families.
From the Pentagon, the letter asks whether recruiters have been given guidance on how to talk about immigration benefits in light of the administration’s policies; what the department has done to alert service members to policy changes; and whether the department has analyzed effects on recruitment, readiness and morale.
The letter gives the departments a Sept. 16 deadline to respond.
“Immigrant service members and their families have long stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our military, filling critical gaps, strengthening our national defense and making extraordinary sacrifices for this nation," Houlahan said in a statement about the need for an investigation. “To betray them with detention, deportation or intimidation is a direct threat to our military readiness and credibility. We have a duty to honor their service and ensure that the promises made to them are kept.”
Related: Marine Recruiters Promoted an Immigration Benefit Until the Corps Told Them to Stop
