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The Philippines is only second to Mexico among the top birth countries of foreign-born veterans of the US Armed Forces.
For 2020, Mexico was top-ranked with 87,700 veterans in the US, followed by the Philippines with 69,100 and Canada with 20,600. Jamaica (19,900), Cuba (18,800), the Netherlands (14,500), Italy (14,100) and El Salvador (13,800) trailed behind.
This was according to a report by market and consumer data company Statista dated Nov. 17, which based its analysis on data from the US Census Bureau Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Thirteen percent, or 2.3 million, of the US veteran population (18 million) were born outside the US or are children of immigrants, as per the report.
The number of US veterans born in Philippines may come as a surprise for some, but the two countries in fact share a long history dating as far back as World War II, said Statista.
“The real number of Philippines-born veterans of the US armed forces can be expected to be even higher than indicated in the survey,” Statista noted. “The US has not granted citizenship to most of those it recruited in the Philippines during World War II despite initially promising to do so, blocking a path to immigration and causing many to remain in their home country.”
Some of the Filipinos who enlisted and fought for the US forces during World War II were granted American citizenship. Thus, around 12,000 of the reported 69,100 US veterans who were born in the Philippines are currently over 80 years old, as per the report.
In 2018, there were still around 91,000 Philippine-born veterans in the US forces, according to a report by the Migration Police Institute on May 16, 2019. According to Statista, the old age of World War II veterans is the reason behind the decreasing number of Filipino veterans in the US forces. /ra
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