COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Youth of Color
A recruiter's dream
Chicago Tribune
October 14, 2007
The immigration debate tends to be dominated by the hard-liners on either side. There are a lot of folks, though, who have some ambivalence about the whole thing. They don't condone breaking the law, but they recognize that illegal immigrants came here for an honest purpose: to provide for their families.That makes things especially thorny when you're dealing with the children of those immigrants. Oftentimes they're kids who were brought here as toddlers and know only one land: the U.S.
Those kids are the target of the proposed The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (for short, the Dream Act). It would give those youngsters six years of conditional legal residency in which to attend college. If they earned a two-year degree or finished two years toward a bachelor's degree, they would be eligible for a green card, allowing them to live and work here legally and to apply for citizenship.
The idea was included in the comprehensive immigration bills that failed in Congress the last two years. It's gaining traction because of a provision that has not gotten much attention before now: The act would offer the same path to citizenship for those who complete two years of U.S. military service.
With American troops stretched thin in Iraq, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has renewed his push to pass the Dream Act. The Army Times reports that military leaders in charge of recruiting and personnel policy called the measure "very appealing."
Each year, 65,000 youngsters who are here illegally graduate from high school to an uncertain future. They don't qualify for most scholarships, student loans or resident tuition rates; they also can't work here legally. Even those who can afford tuition hesitate to apply for fear of being deported. With no ties to any other country, most end up staying and work underground. U.S. taxpayers, meanwhile, are deprived of the talent and legal labor of hundreds of thousands of young men and women they paid to school.
The Dream Act would apply to high school graduates who arrived before age 16 and have been here at least five years. It would affect only those who meet those qualifications on the day the law is enacted, not those who arrive later. That's a pool estimated at 300,000 or more.
There's no telling how many are college material or how many are potential soldiers, but supporters of the bill are clearly pushing the military service angle. That rubs some Hispanic organizations the wrong way. Young people who wouldn't normally volunteer for combat will put their lives in danger, those groups say, because it's their only realistic path to citizenship.
But those risks are assumed every day by American soldiers who already are citizens. The armed forces have a long tradition of dangling incentives to encourage people to enlist -- the G.I. bill, medical benefits, educational assistance. Lately they've resorted to lowering qualifications and offering outsize re-enlistment bonuses to keep the ranks filled, while thousands of promising applicants are, in the words of one West Point professor, "pounding down the doors" of recruiters and being turned away because they have no green cards.
Americans have made a significant investment in these home-grown honor students and aspiring soldiers. We shouldn't let it go to waste.
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