According to a report from the Washington Post, the U.S. Army is prepared to expose a number of foreign-born recruits to deportation by canceling their enlistment contracts. “It’s a Dumpster fire ruining people’s lives,” said Margaret Stock, a retired Army officer. “The magnitude of incompetence is beyond belief. We have a war going on. We need these people”:
U.S. Army recruiters have abruptly canceled enlistment contracts for hundreds of foreign-born military recruits since last week, upending their lives and potentially exposing many to deportation, according to several affected recruits and a retired Army officer familiar with their situation.
Many of these enlistees have waited years to join a troubled immigration recruitment program designed to attract highly skilled immigrants into the service in exchange for fast-track citizenship.
Now recruits and experts say that recruiters are shedding their contracts to free themselves from an onerous enlistment process to focus on individuals who can more quickly enlist and thus satisfy strict recruitment targets.
The Pentagon and Army Recruiting Command, which oversees policy and guidance at its recruitment centers across the country, did not answer repeated requests for comment.
These recruits have already handed over personal information and data from fingerprints to addresses. But canceled military contracts means they’ve also lost their legal immigration status, and the nation they were prepared to lose their lives for may also deport them.
The Post:
Stock said a recruiter told her there was pressure from the recruiting command to release foreign-born recruits, with one directive suggesting they had until Sept. 14 to cut them loose without counting against their recruiting targets, an accounting quirk known as “loss forgiveness.”
The recruiter told Stock the Army Reserve is struggling to meet its numbers before the fiscal year closes Sept. 30, and canceling on resource-intensive recruits is attractive to some recruiters.
Half a dozen recruits from across the country tell The Post their contracts have been or will be canceled. Some are now out of legal immigration status and fear deportation.
Earlier this month we reported that the Pentagon has no idea what to do about the 900 or so undocumented youth who are either serving or have signed contracts to serve in the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MANVI) program following Donald Trump ending DACA. Apparently they are getting closer to deciding what to do—kicking them out.
