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UPDATE: Pentagon Moves Forward with Cancellation of Program That Recruits Immigrants to Military
In July 2017, Smart Dissent reported that the Pentagon was likely canceling a program that recruits immigrants to the military. Known as Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), the program fast-tracked immigrants to citizens in exchange for their service defending this great country.
In an update to that story as of September 2017, the program was suspended and now efforts are moving forward to undo hundreds of contracts of immigrant recruits already in the program. Some will now face deportation.
U.S. Army recruiters have abruptly canceled enlistment contracts for hundreds of foreign-born military recruits since last week, upending their lives and potentially exposing many to deportation.... Many of these enlistees have waited years to join a recruitment program designed to attract highly skilled immigrants into the service in exchange for fast-track citizenship.
Margaret Stock, a retired Army officer who led creation of the immigration recruitment program, told The Washington Post that she has received dozens of frantic messages from recruits this week, with many more reporting similar action in Facebook groups. "It’s a dumpster fire ruining people’s lives. The magnitude of incompetence is beyond belief,” she said. “We have a war going on. We need these people.”
Stock said a recruiter told her there was pressure from the recruiting command to release foreign-born recruits, with one directive suggesting they had until Sept. 14 to cut them loose without counting against their recruiting targets, an accounting quirk known as “loss forgiveness.”
These are REAL PEOPLE who's lives are at stake and are seeking to serve in the U.S. military.
Lola Mamadzhanova, who immigrated to the United States from Kyrgyzstan in 2009, said she heard that Army recruiters in Evanston, Ill., texted immigrant recruits last week asking whether they still wanted to enlist, with an unusual condition: They had 10 minutes to respond. She never received the text message. “The recruiters did some dirty trick just to get me out so I won’t be trouble anymore,” Mamadzhanova, 27, told The Post on Thursday. Her active-duty contract was canceled Sept. 7, according to a separation document obtained by The Post that said she “declined to enlist.” She later learned the recruiters used a wrong number to text her. “Joining the Army was a dream of mine since America has treated me so well,” she said. She applied for asylum in April, joining other recruits who have sought asylum or fled.
“I feel devastated,” she said. “The Army was my only hope.”