A leaked memo says that the Department of Defense will stop kicking immigrants out of the Armed Forces. They shouldn’t have been doing that in the first place.
Immigrants who want to serve our country should be honored for their sacrifice, not punished because they weren’t born here.
The memo dated July 20, 2018, but leaked just now to the Associated Press, orders high-ranking officials to cease processing discharge orders for men and women who joined the armed forces as part of a special program that provided immigrants with a path to citizenship.
The immigrants that had been recruited and were in some cases being kicked out were exactly the kind of people that the U.S. needs. They were in the country legally, followed a lawful immigration procedure, had skills the military needed, and were willing to give up their lives to defend America and our interests abroad.
Yet these individuals, as initially reported by AP, were abruptly discharged or had their contracts canceled often without reason. The army seems to have recognized that there might have been a problem with these discharge orders, as a Brazilian reservist sued and had his discharge reversed.
The problems for immigrant recruits extend beyond discharges. The program under which they were originally recruited was shuttered in 2016, cutting off critical talent for the military and denying a path to citizenship for immigrants that wanted to serve in the military.
The program, Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, has its roots in a post 9/11 order from President George W. Bush who sought to bolster military ranks by providing an expedited path to naturalization for immigrants willing to serve. Although it took seven years for that program to become an official part of military recruiting, it has since been successful and almost 110,000 members of the Armed Forces gained citizenship for their service since 9/11.
Under Barack Obama, the program was expanded to offer eligibility to DACA recipients. In response, the Department of Defense implemented much more stringent background checks — not just for DACA recipients but for everyone — creating a backlog of recruits.
In 2016, the program was abruptly suspended — a move that left more than 1,000 recruits in limbo hurting both the armed forces and the immigrants who would no longer have access to citizenship as they expected.
This is unacceptable.
Ideally, we should be offering citizenship to anyone with a clean record and good character who wants to serve. For those who have already been discharged, the armed forces should apologize and welcome them back to the ranks.
