Actually as of last July, 30, 2003 972 (its higher now) active military personnel were non-citizens, In the first days of the war in Iraq, rumors spread in Mexican communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border that undocumented immigrants who enlisted could get citizenship.

One of the first U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, was an orphaned Guatemalan who at the time of his death was not even an American citizen.



What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Iraq? That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.

Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego
As U.S. casualties in Iraq continue to mount, so does the worry in the country's Latino community that its children are dying in unusually high numbers and are being lured into dangerous service with targeted recruiting by the Armed Forces.

Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers in Iraq.....