Immigrant soldiers are a tradition in the US armed forces. During the Civil War there were whole regiments of immigrants in the US Army. Half the men who died with Custer at Little Bighorn were immigrants.
The amazing Lt. Charles DeRudio was one of the survivors. He was an illegal immigrant in fact, since he had made his way to the US after he escaped from Devil’s Island. He was imprisoned there for attempting to assassinate Napoleon III. He had initially been sentenced to the guillotine and 2 of his co-conspirators were in fact executed before the sentences were commuted. He enlisted during the Civil War, when they were not overly particular about such things. He stayed in the army after the war. He was with Reno’s group at Little Bighorn and was trapped in the trees beside the river when the command’s initial attack was defeated. He and 2 other soldiers hid there for 36 hours. As a young man, he had also survived a shipwreck off the coast of Spain. Amazingly, he lived to age 78 and died of natural causes.