Think it’s strange that immigrants are in the army?

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged.

A few said the Army informed them they had been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

Throughout history, immigrants have served and earned praise for their actions in battle despite reservations about their immigration status and loyalties. Here are some examples ...

During the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, non-citizens made up as much as 20 percent of the 1.5 million soldiers in the Union Army, Emilio T. Gonzalez, then-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, told a U.S. Senate committee in 2006. Most of them, including Union Maj. Gen. Franz Siegel, were born in Germany or Ireland.

Gonzalez testified that 369 immigrants were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroism in the Union cause, including Capt. William Joyce Sewell of Ireland. Sewell would later become a U.S. senator from New Jersey.