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View Full Version : The U.S. Army Is Quietly Discharging Immigrant Recruits




Zippyjuan
07-09-2018, 12:37 PM
http://time.com/5331398/us-army-immigrant-recruits-discharged/

These people followed the rules and passed background checks but are being kicked out anyways.


Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.

The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.

“It was my dream to serve in the military,” said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. “Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”

Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.

Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.

To become citizens, the service members need an honorable service designation, which can come after even just a few days at boot camp. But the recently discharged service members have had their basic training delayed, so they can’t be naturalized.

Margaret Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney and a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who helped create the immigrant recruitment program, said she’s been inundated over the past several days by recruits who have been abruptly discharged.

All had signed enlistment contracts and taken an Army oath, Stock said. Many were reservists who had been attending unit drills, receiving pay and undergoing training, while others had been in a “delayed entry” program, she said.

“Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775,” Stock said. “We wouldn’t have won the revolution without immigrants. And we’re not going to win the global war on terrorism today without immigrants.”




The service members affected by the recent discharges all enlisted in recent years under a special program aimed at bringing medical specialists and fluent speakers of 44 sought-after languages into the military. The idea, according to the Defense Department, was to “recognize their contribution and sacrifice.”

President George W. Bush ordered “expedited naturalization” for immigrant soldiers in 2002 in an effort to swell military ranks. Seven years later the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, known as MAVNI, became an official recruiting program.

More at link.

Zippyjuan
07-09-2018, 12:40 PM
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/04/21/goal-80000-recruits-year-wont-be-met-army-secretary-says.html


Goal of 80,000 Recruits Won't Be Met, Army Secretary Says

The Army will fall short of its recruiting goals this year but eventually wants to have a force of 500,000 active duty troops, Army Secretary Mark Esper said Friday.

The Army had sought to recruit 80,000 troops this year, a major increase over the 69,000 brought into the service last year, but has now lowered the goal to 76,500 new troops, Esper and Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey said at an off-camera session with Pentagon reporters.

Esper and Dailey attributed the shortfall to a number of factors, including the improving economy and the low unemployment rate that has private employers competing for new hires.

"The strong economy does make it challenging," Esper said.

Esper said the current goal was to increase the strength of the active duty force to 483,500 but said he expected the force would have to grow to 500,000 to decrease the operational tempo that "sees our soldiers on this hamster wheel" of deployment after deployment with little time at home.

However, "we're not going to sacrifice quality for quantity" in recruiting, Esper said.

About 95 percent of recruits now are at least high school graduates, Esper said, and the number of so-called "Category 4" troops -- those with low scores on the aptitude test -- was about four percent. Esper said the goal was to reduce the number of Category 4 troops to two percent.

Although the Army will fall short of the recruitment goal of 80,000, retention rates saw major increases, going up from 81 percent to 86 percent, Dailey said.

However, the high retention rate has raised concerns for the National Guard and Reserves, Esper and Dailey said.

The Guard and Reserves tend to rely on troops transitioning from the active duty force. Esper said the Army must do better at answering the question: "As retention rates stay high, what is the impact on the Guard and Reserve?"



That will mean fewer National Guard troops available to assist at the border.


Late last year, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, head of the Army's recruiting command, told the Associated Press that meeting recruiting goals was going to be a "significant challenge for the command" and could mean taking in more recruits who require waivers for marijuana use, low test scores and medical problems.

The need for more troops was a matter of supply and demand, Esper said. Combatant commanders had increased their demands for Army troops in recent years, and currently about 100,000 soldiers are deployed overseas, he said.

Zippyjuan
07-09-2018, 12:44 PM
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/04/01/as-many-as-11800-military-families-face-deportation-issues-group-says/


As many as 11,800 military families face deportation issues, group says

As many as 11,800 currently serving in the U.S. military are dealing with a spouse or family member who is facing deportation, a national immigration advocacy group announced Friday.

No previous estimate, official or unofficial, has been available on just how many of the 1 million married military members currently on active duty, National Guard or Reserve status may be dealing with the stress of having a spouse, dependent or parent deported.

It’s also not a number that can be easily checked, or verified, because neither DoD, the Department of Homeland Security nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tracks military status in immigration proceedings.

American Families United, a non-profit immigration advocacy group, calculated the estimate using 2011 U.S. Census statistics, which found that 6.3 percent of the 129 million married Americans are married to foreign-born spouses. The Pew Research Center found that one in four of those foreign-born spouses are in the country illegally. About 75 percent of that population comes from countries like Mexico, where if they entered illegally, they have a harder time obtaining legal status, as opposed to a person from Europe who might have overstayed a visa, said American Families United President Randall Emery.

“So we derived the total of military (active and reserves) married to people with inadmissibility-type immigration issues by taking the total (1 million), multiplying by the national percentage of foreign-born (6.3 percent, so 63,000 current U.S. military are married to immigrants), and then the 25 percent of the total which have problems with immigration law: 15,750. Of that, Pew’s data indicates 75 percent are from sources characterized by entry without inspection and similar issues, that would be about 11,800,” Emery said.

kpitcher
07-09-2018, 03:25 PM
I'm actually confused about this change in policy. Why short ourselves people willing to serve as they are trying to legally become full time citizens? As these are often medics or translators or other special skillsets it seems like they'll be harder to replace. I haven't seen anything to explain how this is a good thing.

dannno
07-09-2018, 03:53 PM
I'm actually confused about this change in policy. Why short ourselves people willing to serve as they are trying to legally become full time citizens? As these are often medics or translators or other special skillsets it seems like they'll be harder to replace. I haven't seen anything to explain how this is a good thing.

LOL, no... they joined up for the $$ they were promised, because they don't want to do the jobs "white people" don't want to do.