Service Guarantees Citizenship

If I were in a position to do so, I would probably support something like a Starship Troopers model of citizenship: not a birthright, nor something easily gained, but something that is won by military or other physically arduous service. Something that demonstrated commitment to the American way, not just an accident of birth one way or the other. After all, as we were recently discussing, some of the best Americans are first-generation immigrants; and, too, some of those who despise America and its traditions most are native born Americans.

So, I believe I oppose this move. One never knows if the media is painting it accurately, but if so it's a problem.

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.

Spokespeople from the Army may not be able to comment on this to the press due to litigation, but they can answer to Senators. If you're inclined to call yours, you might press them to make an inquiry here and find out whether or not this is as bad as the story implies.

UPDATE: AVI wins the prize for this one. The lawyers behind the story are Perkins Cole, a notorious firm of Clinton-faction Assassins. It looks like the program was suspended as early as 2014, and largely killed in 2016 as it generated a backlog the Army couldn't handle. Which makes it an Obama-era problem, spun up as an anti-Trump story.

That said, I still like the idea of service-guarantees-citizenship. Figuring out how to make it work could be worth doing.