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Pentagon Likely Canceling Program That Recruits Immigrants to Military
A program called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) provides a fast track to citizenship for non-citizens who join the U.S. military. While not well-known, the program has been in place since 2009.
The recruitment program began in 2009 to attract immigrants with medical or language skills, such as surgeons or Arabic speakers. It allows visa holders, asylees and refugees to bypass the green card process to become U.S. citizens.
Noncitizens have had a long history in the U.S. military. Immigrants have been eligible to enlist since the Revolutionary War.
According to retired Lt. Colonel Margaret Stock, the program's founder, more than 10,000 people have been recruited under the program. They serve all over the world and have contributed to operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Asia-Pacific hotspots. Some are medical specialists: thoracic surgeons, prosthodontists, orthopedic surgeons, and entomologists, to name a few. Some speak critical languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Somali and Pashto, which remain vital to our ability to operate effectively around the world.
According to a memo obtained by NPR, the program, which is currently frozen by the Trump administration, is slated to be cancelled because harming immigrants is their top priority.
The Pentagon is considering pulling out of a deal it made with thousands of noncitizen recruits with specialized skills: Join the military and we'll put you on the fast track to citizenship. The proposal to dismantle the program would cancel enlistment contracts for many of the foreign-born recruits, leaving about 1,000 of them without legal protection from deportation. The plan under consideration is laid out in a memo from Pentagon officials to Defense Secretary James Mattis.
How many people would be impacted?
Nearly 10,000 immigrants are in the MAVNI program, principally the Army, according to the Pentagon memo. About 1,000 of the recruits who have been awaiting naturalization would be at risk of deportation because their visas have expired. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had deferred action on deportation in these cases because the soldiers were in the MAVNI program.
...according to reporting in the Washington Post, it could leave as many as 1,800 applicants out in the cold and subject to deportation. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia last week implored Defense Secretary James Mattis not to cancel the program and threatened a legislative backlash.
Lawsuits have already begun:
In one of two ongoing lawsuits, several noncitizens recruited under MAVNI and serving in the Army Reserve have sued. They argue that they were promised an expedited path to citizenship but that the Department of Homeland Security, at the behest of the Pentagon, has failed to process their naturalization applications, as required by law.
The Pentagon seems to recognize that cancelling this program will be disasterous to thousands of immigrants and our military as well as a public relations disaster!
In the memo, the Pentagon acknowledges that freezing the MAVNI program and subjecting recruits to more screening could be legally problematic. The memo also suggests devising a "public affairs strategy" before canceling enlistment contracts.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/opinions/pentagon-dont-cancel-mavni-opinion-kirby/index.html