Posted on 02/16/2009 8:20:25 AM PST by lewisglad
WASHINGTON: For decades, high-skilled professionals from across the world, particularly India, have fought their way to US citizenship through legal immigration channels — a process that can take up to a decade or more. Now, Uncle Sam is making it easy. Fight your way — literally — to American citizenship in as little as six months.
In a far reaching proposal, the US military will open its doors to skilled immigrant guest workers (such as those who hold H-1B visas) who have lived in the US for a minimum of two years. The move is aimed at offsetting the poor recruitment intake from traditional sources at a time the US military is stretched thin by deployments in Iraq and the Af-Pak theater.
US Green card holders, also known as permanent residents, have long been eligible to enlist in the military. But this is the first time since the Vietnam War that the armed forces will be open to temporary immigrants and offer them a path to citizenship, a move that in some ways amounts to outsourcing its wars.
The program comes at a time when skilled immigrants in the US are facing a slowing job market, offering them an avenue to turn potential pink slips into not just Green cards, but citizenship — if they are so obsessed about their American Dream.
A pilot program that will take in 1000 immigrant recruits nationwide will begin in New York City in the first year, according the New York Times, which first reported the development on Sunday.
By going to the pool of skilled immigrants, recruiters actually expect to improve the quality of US military personnel, since most foreign skilled guest workers typically have more education, foreign language skills and professional expertise than many Americans who enlist. This is expected to help the military to fill shortages in medical care, language interpretation and field intelligence analysis.
The program is particularly germane to Indian guest workers who constitute the largest segment of skilled foreign workers in the US, and although Spanish-speaking Latinos constitute the largest group of immigrants, they are largely unskilled.
The one-year pilot program in New York City that will recruit 550 personnel (rest 450 will come from across the country) explicitly excludes Spanish speakers, while being open to immigrants who speak one or more of 35 languages, including Hindi/Urdu, Tamil, Arabic, Chinese, Nepalese, Pashto etc. US officials have said in the past that they sorely lacked field intelligence operatives with requisite language skills to be deployed in the Af-Pak theater.
The army’s program will also include about 300 medical professionals to be recruited nationwide. If the pilot program, which is restricted to the army and some other agencies, succeeds, it will expand for all branches of the military
More likely they join to infiltrate the military, for financial or other personal gain, to get experience for the cartels, etc. Having close family members in the military, I am very concerned about undesirables enlisting.
Above all, US citizenship should never be for sale.
I agree with you. Many naturalized citizens are very patriotic because they have lived here, are familiar with this country, and have respected the laws to become citizens. But we cannot expect foreigners adore us from day one and want to die for us, as some others have suggested.
Today's immigrants aren't coming here to be Americans. They stubbornly insist on maintaining their old national identity and culture. Their loyalty lies where they came from and makes them a security risk.BS. This song and dance gets done every generation. Italians, Irish and Germans were all accused of "not assimilating". American culture is like a (good) virus, give folks a generation and then everybody's an American.
Presently many immigrants form criminal gangs. The extension of MS13 is just one example. Mexico, for example, believes it has the right to dump it deviants and surplus population on us and pull raids across the border. Immigrants/illegal aliens have been establishing enemy cells. We are fighting a new kind of warfare, with the invasion taking place across the border.
Incredible the many perverts and terrorists that have been allowed to enter this country. Our biggest threat does not come from Iraq but from the immigrants from enemy nations and illegal aliens. The planes on 9/11 took off from American soil.
Wow! You’re really out there. May I suggest aripiprazole for your symptoms.
Not out there at all.
This is really old stuff. redundantly affirmed by a great multiplicity of sources.
Besides . . . it fits Scripture . . . quite source enough . . . and the progression has been as predicted and suggested when I first began studying it in 1965.
WHEN you sound like you’ve read a great deal more than a few lines from the MSM regarding the evidence, then maybe I’ll consider your assertions worth considering.
Fellow Freepers need to help me out here: It is part of family lore that my great-grandfather was fast tracked to citizenship due to the fact that he volunteered for the US Army while working in the Pennsylvania coal fields. Was such a program in place back then?
We need to ship the illegals out NOW, but let's not kid ourselves, ethnic criminal enterprises are nothing new.
I've advocated an approach like this for a long time.
I have no problem with anyone foreign who decides they want to become an American (obviously because the rest of the world sucks) and decides to join our armed forces to make it happen.
Nothing like distorting the truth for your own gain.
The planes took off from American soil with AQ members on board on orders from Osama.
Our biggest threat does not come from Iraq but from the immigrants from enemy nations and illegal aliens.
So now instead of being against just illegal immigration(which is just), we are now against all immigration. Brilliant.
Knuckle heads like you are what costs Republicans votes.
What sources?
I'm often suspect of media reports when they say/refer to "sources".
I'm supposed to believe some pretty amazing accusations on the words of multiple sources; unidentified multiple sources. AS we are not to believe the news media or their sources, what argument do you offer us that we should believe your "multiple sources".
Have you read about the honor killings in this country? About Muzzammil Hassan who beheaded his wife? The article "Wedding dispute leads to beheadings in India"?
Now, however, new elements have emerged in the ethnic gangs. The gangs have become more political and more virulent in their hatred of this country and desire to damage it. They demand special perks and reveal a sense of entitlement. One example is the involvement of MS13 with al Qaeda.
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