Soldiers worry illegal relatives will be deported

GIs fear about family could lower morale as immigrants swell military ranks



Haydee Rodriguez was afraid she would be deported while her husband was overseas, which would leave her son in limbo.


Yaderlin Jimenez was an illegal immigrant facing deportation. Her husband, a U.S. citizen and soldier, couldn’t help her because he was missing after an insurgent attack in Iraq.

Army Spc. Alex Jimenez of Lawrence, Mass., disappeared in May after he was apparently snatched in a raid on his unit south of Baghdad. His capture drew national attention to his wife’s deportation case, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asked immigration officials to halt the proceedings. His wife then became a legal resident.

But the couple’s plight put a public face on the private anguish of a growing number of military families in similar straits.

About 35,000 legal immigrants without citizenship are now serving in the military, and nearly 34,000 other service members have taken the citizenship oath since 2001. That means when immigrant soldiers ship off to Iraq, they may carry with them a worry their American-born counterparts are less likely to share: that their family members might be deported while they are away.

“Every base has immigration problems,â€