Opinion: The Iraq Shortcut To Citizenship Legalization
Scripps Howard News Service, October 01, 2007
By Jorge Mariscal
In an obscure memoir of the American war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: "I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?"
During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.
Non-citizens make up between 2 percent and 3 percent of total military manpower. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards for service in the combat zone. Over 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Latin America.
Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet. But the strain on active-duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. Fresh bodies are hard to find and so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors -- or DREAM -- Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for more than six years. If it passes this year, it would provide a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented young people who were raised and completed high school in the United States. Those who qualify would have to complete two years of college or enlist in the military in order to earn a permanent green card.
The Latino community was quick to support the legislation because of its educational component. For the first five years, there was a deafening silence in Latino circles about the military option. This changed only recently when the Pentagon and elected officials began to discuss openly the DREAM Act as a possible fix for the military's manpower needs.
Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, told reporters that the legislation would help "boost" military recruiting. Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve, and a faculty member at West Point, confirmed that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" without the unknown personal details that would accompany foreign recruits. ...
"They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates."
Last July, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the floor of the Senate, "The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. ... (It) creates a strong incentive for military service. And many DREAM Act kids come from a demographic group that is already predisposed towards military service "
The irony, of course, is that while the Pentagon chases young non-citizens to fill the ranks, other non-citizen workers whose economic contributions to the nation are undeniable are being pursued by other agencies of the U.S. government.
As one worker told me, Latino communities are experiencing a "double deportation." On the one hand, military recruiters are flooding those high schools that have Latino majorities. Many of those young men and women who are successfully recruited will end up in Iraq and Afghanistan. A metaphorical deportation, of course, but from the family's point of view a painful removal of a loved one, nonetheless.
At the same time, the undocumented parents and siblings of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watch as armored vehicles carrying teams of armed personnel invade their neighborhoods to conduct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Just last month in the working-class neighborhood of Barrio Logan of San Diego, for example, police surrounded a 10-block area while helicopters circled overhead and ICE agents swept through in full combat regalia. Similar actions are taking place across the country.
Some of these parents have been arrested and scheduled for deportation hearings. Remember, these are parents whose sons and daughters are fighting "for democracy" in Iraq. One such case is that of U.S. Army Pvt. Armando Soriano, 20, who died in Iraq in 2004. This summer, ICE raids swept through Houston. Soriano's father was detained and is currently threatened with deportation.
Like the undocumented Mexican soldier in Vietnam, young Latinas and Latinos presented with the military pathway to acceptance will have to ask themselves if the price is worth it.
(Jorge Mariscal is a professor of history and literature at the University of California-San Diego. Reach him at gmariscal@ucsd.edu.)
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