Earlier this summer, I wrote about how the wife of a U.S. soldier in Iraq faced deportation. Not satisfied with going after the significant others of those who have risked their lives (and sometimes lost) in Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security is now targeting undocumented parents of Iraq war vets.

Three years after U.S. Army Private Armando Soriano, 20, died fighting in Haditha, Iraq, his father is facing deportation. Soriano is now buried in Houston, Tex., his hometown, where his parents, undocumented workers from Mexico, are currently living.

What’s even sadder about this story is that Soriano was able to get a green card for his mother, but not his father. So not only did the couple lose a son, now they may lose each other. Should there be some special consideration for families of vets?

Sadly, the Soriano case is not an a lone one.

One tenth of the U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq have been immigrants.Although exact figures are difficult to come by, many parents with sons and daughters who died in Iraq have been deported.Official statistics show that more than 68,000 foreign-born military individuals are serving the U.S. How many of these individuals have relatives who do not have a legal right to be in the United States is not known. One estimate claims that five percent of those serving in the American military are illegal immigrants who joined with false papers.

Via / AlterNet