AP: US Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits

The Associated Press has an article going around today about how the US Army [is] quietly discharging immigrant recruits. It can be misleading, if you choose to misread the whole thing. Basically, the Army is issuing uncharacterized discharges to people who haven’t gone to basic training yet because of problems with their applications. Some folks are reading it as the Army is discharging active duty soldiers – but that’s not it at all;

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.

Many of the quotes from recruits in the article give the reader the impression that they spent time on active duty – that’s not the case. The immigration attorney keeps saying thing like “Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775” whatever that means because it doesn’t apply to this situation at all.

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.

It came under fire from conservatives when President Barack Obama added DACA recipients — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally — to the list of eligible enlistees. In response, the military layered on additional security clearances for recruits to pass before heading to boot camp.

The Trump Administration added even more hurdles, creating a backlog within the Defense Department. Last fall, hundreds of recruits still in the enlistment process had their contracts canceled. A few months later, the military suspended MAVNI.

See, you have to read deeply into the article until you understand that the Associated Press is talking about recruits waiting on start dates, not soldiers on active duty.

I’m just waiting for the anti-military Left to take up the mantle for these recruits.

Category: Army News