Birbhadra, The children of illegal parents are eligible to enlist in the armed forces but as Phatte said, there are a bunch of hoops that they have to go through: Physical, Criminal and Background checks being the major part. There are a whole bunch of disqualification factors that range from former gang membership to too many tattoos (although I believe the army is willing to relax their requirements on the number of "body art" allowed for recruits to replenish the ranks) I don't know what the current state of affairs is but the DREAM Act which was tabled a while back was geared towards the children of illegal or legal status pending parents. What the act allowed was for children who had grwon up and completed high school in the U.S and possessed "good moral character" were pout on a fast track to Permanent Residency if they completed a certain number of years in Military Service i.e. those enlisting did not have to be Permanent Residents as long as they met the listed criteria: http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/DREAM/DREAM%20Judiciary%20Sumry_040504.pdf Check the above link- it has the entire wording and analysis of the DREAM Act.