A group of veterans voiced their opinions and joined the battle for immigration reform on Thursday with a press conference in Washington, D.C.

During the press conference, Veterans for Immigration Reform presented their paper, "On the Front Line: Impact of Immigrants on Military Force Readiness," which applauded immigrants for their contribution to the U.S. Armed Forces, EFE reported. The group also discussed immigrants' legendary military history and asked that their families receive better treatment. Afterward, members of Vets4Reform spoke with lawmakers.

"I served with immigrants who, though born under a foreign flag, chose to serve this nation in combat far from our shores," Brett Hunt, the group's founder, wrote in a Vets4Reform blog post on Wednesday. "Those men and women came from places like Mexico, Honduras and Vietnam and chose to defend our country. They were part of a great tradition that dates all the way back to the Revolutionary War of immigrants taking up the charge of defending their adopted homeland. I have a duty to get their back and ensure that our country does right by them."

On Thursday, Hunt also recalled serving with soldiers from Kenya, among other countries, in Iraq. He said that despite these immigrants' great sacrifice, they "have no guarantee of being treated fairly by our immigration regulations."

"We have a debt to those veterans and to their families," Hunt said

Jesus Magaña, who was born in the United States, also shared his story. When he was 19 years old, he joined the Armed Forces and went to Afghanistan. While there, he learned that his sister was in detention about to be deported. She came to the country from Mexico when she was 8-months-old.

"[Lawmakers] have no more excuses," Magaña said.

According to EFE, there were over 65,000 immigrants on active duty in the Armed Forces in 2013. Five percent of them were uniformed military personal.

About 12 percent of all veterans living today are either immigrants or have parents who are immigrants. Vets4Reforms listed some notable veterans who fit this bill on Thursday, such as Gen. Colin Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before being appointed Secretary of State and is the son of Jamaican immigrants.
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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