The Biden administration says it will look into veterans and their families who were deported

• The Biden administration will review the deportations of US military veterans and their families.
• An official said immigration policy will "focus on those who are national security and public safety threats."
• Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran and Purple Heart recipient, has been fighting these deportations for years.

The new Biden administration says it will review the cases of veterans and military families who were deported under the Trump administration, McClatchy first reported, citing a White House official.

"As a military parent, President Biden knows the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make for our country each and every day," White House spokesman Vedant Patel said in a statement to CNN. "The administration's immigration enforcement will focus on those who are national security and public safety threats, not military families, service members or veterans."

"The federal government in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security will take further review of removals of veterans and their family members," he added.

The White House statement is consistent with a memo went out to the Department of Homeland Security as President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20 instructing it to review "policies and practices concerning immigration enforcement" and "to prioritize responding to threats to national security, public safety, and border security."

Over the years, countless former military members, including those who deployed to combat zones overseas, or their family members have been deported.

In a first, the Deported Veterans Support House, a facility in Tijuana, Mexico nicknamed "The Bunker," wrote to the US president "on behalf of thousands of US deported veterans" urging him to let them return to the US.

"There is not a more perfect time in our nation's history to bring these heroes home. President Biden is a military father and knows what it is like to be separated from a loved one overseas," the letter, which Insider previously reported, states.

Military veterans who are deported often face a number of challenges. In Mexico, for instance, the cartels have been known to prey on deported veterans, valued for their understanding of combat, forcing them to serve in criminal operations.

The deportation of veterans is something that Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient, has fought against for years.

"We should be ashamed, heartbroken, furious, you name it," she wrote in a 2019 op-ed published in Military Times following a visit to The Bunker. "These veterans fought for us for so long. It's past time that we start fighting for them, too."

Between 2013 and 2018, roughly 250 veterans were either deported or placed in removal proceedings, according to a 2019 Government Accountability Office report. The situation is believed to have been exacerbated during the Trump administration, which saw immigrant service members denied US citizenship at a higher rate than regular civilians.

In a letter to Biden just prior to his inauguration, Duckworth pressed the incoming president to take executive action "that prohibits the deportation of Veterans and revamps the citizenship process for military servicemembers, Veterans and their dependents."

The senator wrote: "As your administration begins working to improve our Nation's immigration system, I ask you to prioritize military and Veteran naturalizations, as well as bringing deported Veterans home to the United States where they belong."