Pentagon may thank foreign-born recruits for their service by deporting them

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday June 27, 2017 · 10:11 AM PDT

2017/06/27 · 10:11

US President Donald Trump departs after delivering a statement on Syria from the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, April 6, 2017..Trump ordered a massive military strike against a Syria Thursday in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack they blame on President Bashar al-Assad. A US official said 59 precision guided missiles hit Shayrat Airfield in Syria, where Washington believes Tuesday's deadly attack was launched.. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Foreign-born recruits who signed up for the military with the promise of U.S. citizenship in exchange for their service are finally getting their thanks in the form of deportation. MAGA.

According to a new report, the Pentagon is considering ending the contracts of a large number of foreign-born recruits in the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program—which puts service members with foreign-language and other speciality skills on an expedited path to citizenship—due to an “overtasked vetting process and heightened security risk.”

But according to one former official, this can be something as innocuous as having a foreign relative, which would be expected of a foreign-born applicant in the first place. And due to the fact that the federal government already has so much of their personal information on file, many of these recruits would be “prime targets” for immediate deportation.

Basically, “Thank you for your service. Now get out”:

Last year, officials heightened security screenings specifically for MAVNI recruits, diverting “already constrained Army fiscal and manpower resources,” the memo said.

The overtasked vetting process and heightened security risk led officials to recommend canceling enlistment contracts for all 1,800 awaiting orders for basic training, and halting the program altogether, according to the memo.

Those recruits are in what the military calls the delayed-entry program, a holding pool of recruits assigned training dates in the future. About 1,000 of them have seen their visas expire while waiting for travel orders, which would put them at risk of deportation if their contracts are canceled.

“It’s terrible,” said Margaret Stock, a retired Army officer who actually helped implement the program in 2009. “You trusted the Army, who delayed the process, and now they’re going to cancel your contract and have you deported.”

The Pentagon is also considering ending the careers of 2,400 part-time troops in the program who have yet to attend basic training.

Stock, the retired officer, waved off concerns of heightened risk of the MAVNI recruits cited in the memo, which says 30 percent subject to “enhanced screening” have “unmitigable derogatory information” that could bar them from service.

That term is typically used to describe applicants with characteristics that cannot be helped, Stock says, like a family member who worked for a foreign government or simply having foreign relatives.

There does not appear to have been a policy designed to grant exceptions to what would be a common occurrence among the population, she said.

“It’s okay to investigate someone with a legitimate security threat,” Stock said. “But share a characteristic they don’t like, which is they’re foreigners. They’re going to be treated as second-class citizens for their entire career.”

Nearly 11,000 non-citizens currently serve in the U.S. military, with another 12,000 in the Reserves. At least 119 immigrants posthumously earned their citizenship after dying in combat, including Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, a formerly undocumented immigrant who was among the first Americans to die in Iraq.

According to Stock, the ”Department of Homeland Security would possibly welcome the move as the Trump administration seeks to ramp up deportations.” Some 230 military veterans have shamefully been deported throughout several administrations due to the fact that “legal permanent residents can be deported if they commit certain crimes, including ones that occurred many years in their past.” House Democrats have introduced legislation to bring some home, but White House staff appeared to push back.

It was just a few weeks ago that Trump, a Vietnam War draft dodger who branded himself as the pro-military candidate during the presidential election, issued an Armed Forces proclamation “[saluting] the bravery of those who defend our Nation's peace and security.” Now his administration could immediately cast out 1,000 recruits who were promised something by our government only to have the rug torn out from under them.

Pentagon may thank foreign-born recruits for their service by deporting them

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