Since the start of the conflict two years ago more than 2,000 American troops have died and over 10,000 injured, some of them non-US nationals.
"This bill we are drafting will make sure the moment an alien resident enters the country's Armed Forces, citizenship will be granted," Frederick's great aunt, Dr Elaine Simon, said in an interview with WBAL-TV 11 News channel in Maryland.
"I just feel it's so wrong, and it's so unfair that, you know, how can you send somebody to fight a war and deny them to be a citizen," she said. "He had to go through such a big hassle to get it, and there's no problem you signing and saying 'I'm willing to die for this country,' and that's what my son did," Michelle Murphy said.
"There are a great number of people serving who are not US citizens," Murphy added.
The US Government will grant Frederick his citizenship posthumously.
"He doesn't need it, he's already dead, and I feel if this can help another family-somebody's child, somebody's husband, somebody's mother-if this can help somebody else, it's going to be worth my fight-that I will feel that my son died for something," Murphy said about plans to lobby Congress to amend immigration laws.
Frederick moved to Randallstown in 1999 and after finishing high school, enlisted with the Army and served in Iraq as a generator mechanic, all with the 983rd Engineer Battalion based in Ohio.
Frederick's original tour of duty had ended, but it was extended it by six months and Murphy believes her son only stayed on to get his citizenship.
"He called me and he couldn't stop crying.He was hysterical, upset-he had killed someone for the first time and he just couldn't handle it," Murphy.
"He hated where he was, but that was his job and the man that he is, he stepped up and did his job," said Kenmore Murphy, the soldier's stepfather.
"He's everything, he's my oldest son and he just made me proud. He was well-loved by a lot of people," Michelle said.
"Even harder is that he doesn't have a face to look at, and I won't be able to ever see him again," she said. "It's going to be a closed casket, and just having that picture in your mind of what he looks like is just even more painful."
The family said Frederick had matured into a "beautiful, thoughtful young man, a soldier who loved military life and leadership but not war".
"Kendell told me Iraq was a dangerous, perilous place to be on any given day," Cmdr Stephen Strzemienski said.
"He didn't like that he didn't know from one day to the next... what will happen. He had seen combat and it bothered him. It bothered him to have to take other lives."
Frederick will be buried tomorrow (04 Nov 2005) at the Arlington cemetery.
