Undocumented workers may become the newest recruitment pool for the war(s) in the Middle East. The irony of immigrants, especially the undocumented, being willing to fight in a war zone to gain access to American citizenship while those born into it decline, is hard to miss.
A military route to citizenship:
Hundreds of thousands of undocumented-immigrant youths could become eligible to join the military to offset shortages of qualified recruits under a bill pending in Congress.
Intense public opposition forced the Senate in June to abandon an immigration bill that included a path to citizenship for undocumented youths.
The proposal still has a strong chance of passing if backers in Congress are successful in attaching it to the annual defense-authorization bill this fall.
The rhetoric surrounding undocumented workers is that they are often willing to do jobs that Americans won’t, from construction jobs to hospitality and healthcare work. It pains me to think that fighting on the Global War on Terror has become a job akin to swabbing toilets or changing bed linens as far as America’s eligible youth are concerned.
The story notes further:
Using immigrants to boost the ranks of the military is not new.
With the demands in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States began offering legal immigrants a chance to expedite citizenship applications for themselves and relatives if they enlisted.
The Wall Street Journal states it even more plainly with it’s headline — Bill Offers U.S. Citizenship for Military Service. After all, that’s what the Romans did.
Backers of legislation that could help hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants become citizens are trying to overcome political opposition by emphasizing the bill’s potential to help the U.S. military meet war-time personnel needs.
The military has seemed receptive, but some Hispanic groups have expressed concern that the bill is a ploy to pull young Latin Americans into combat situations for which they wouldn’t otherwise have volunteered.
Some will argue that undocumented workers have no place in the American economy, but the free market says otherwise. If the jobs they currently do were not available, they would not risk their lives crossing the desert for them.
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