US Army Quietly Ousting Immigrant Recruits After Promising Path to Citizenship
(CD) — Immigrants who joined the U.S. Army through a program promising U.S. citizenship have been abruptly discharged—likely ruining their chances of naturalization and potentially putting them at risk for deportation.
fuckin Trump is deporting the troops https://t.co/cQfRLahBnd
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) July 6, 2018
At least 40 people who joined the Army in recent years through the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program, begun in 2008, have been thrown out of the service or been given reason to doubt the safety of their military status in recent days. Many have been given no reason for their discharge, while others have been told that “personal links to relatives living abroad led them to be labeled as security risks,” according to the Huffington Post.
MAVNI has recruited tens of thousands of immigrants with special medical or language skills to fill numerous positions the Army was unable to fill with U.S.-born recruits.
In order to obtain the “expedited naturalization” promised by the program, the program stipulates that recruits must be “honorably discharged.” According to lawyers for the recruits, who spoke to the Associated Press, the dozens of people who have been turned away from the Army in recent days have been given an “uncategorized discharge.”
The Trump administration’s policies cracking down on undocumented immigration have drawn outrage, with hundreds of thousands of Americans protesting his “zero tolerance” policy and practice of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border last weekend.
With grave concern over the administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers already abundant, new attacks on naturalized citizens and those who have been promised future pathways to citizenship are drawing increasing levels of alarm.
Trump admin policies:
✅Prosecute undocumented immigrants & separate them from their kids
✅Halve the number of legal immigrants, block spouses from working
✅Set up task-force to rescind citizenship from naturalized immigrants
✅Now: discharge immigrant recruits from the army pic.twitter.com/kwA2cTUh3T— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) July 5, 2018
If you think its just about MS-13, or even undocumented immigrants, you have not been paying attention. All kinds of immigrants have become less welcome in the US and more vulnerable because of the actions in this administration.
— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) July 5, 2018
By Julia Conley / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo
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