Vets rip Army’s immig ‘betrayal’

Military veterans said it’s a slap in the face that immigrant recruits have quietly been kicked out of the Army after being promised citizenship — as the Department of Defense said it was for legitimate reasons.

More than 40 servicemen have been given “uncharacterized discharges” in recent weeks after signing up to serve through Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, a special recruitment program that offered them a path to citizenship.

“They’re pretty much breaking promises to these guys,” said Mexican-born Army veteran Hector Barajas, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division between 1996-99 and was honorably discharged in 2001.

But the Defense Department said the 40 or so prospective enlistees were likely among 1,100 people in a “delayed-entry program” and in the process of undergoing a “suitability review” that is similar to a background check.

“They weren’t actually in the service and they were receiving their adjudication from that process,” spokeswoman Maj. Carla Gleason told The Post. “For some reason those individuals, after that suitability review, were determined to be not eligible to serve in the Army.”

The unofficial policy was revealed Thursday in a report by the Associated Press and affects immigrants who enlisted in the Army through MAVNI in hopes of becoming naturalized citizens.

Gleason said 10,000 non-US citizens joined or signed contracts with the Army between 2009 and 2017.

Some recruits were told they were labeled security risks for having family members abroad or because the Defense Department hadn’t completed their background checks. They had not yet undergone basic training.

Under the Trump administration, hundreds of recruits saw their contracts canceled last year. The MAVNI program was suspended in September 2017.