New York (Op)
By Rob Cuthbert
July 6, 2018
This month is the 70th anniversary of President Harry Truman’s executive order to end discrimination in the military according to “race, color, religion or national origin.” Attaining equality for all has always been slow going, but Truman’s order — signed during Jim Crow — is a reminder that the military has often led the way in promoting civil rights.
Yet in recent weeks, President Trump has shown that the military can also be manipulated to serve a nativist agenda. The Department of Defense has unconscionably committed to assisting in the prosecution and internment of asylum seekers. And, over the past few months, Mr. Trump and the civilian leadership of the military have begun to demolish an honorable path to citizenship for immigrants in our armed services.
Mr. Trump is using the military as a tool to segregate citizens from immigrants who lack citizenship, and, by doing so, compromising the structural and moral integrity of the armed forces. Congress must take the initiative to protect the thousands of immigrants who serve in our military from this xenophobic commander in chief.
On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that at least 40 immigrant Army recruits — some from countries that speak languages critical to national security — were suddenly discharged or are having their legal status questioned before they have served long enough to qualify for expedited naturalization. Some of these immigrants will now carry discharge documents that unjustly and incorrectly label them a security risk. Moreover, their path to citizenship will be delayed, perhaps permanently.
Between 2001 and 2017 — a time of punishing wars for the armed services — 125,452 service members were naturalized. The example set by our last Republican president, George W. Bush, offers a sharp contrast to Mr. Trump’s actions.
In 2002, Mr. Bush put about 15,000 immigrant troops on a fast path to citizenship. And, soon after, in one heart-wrenching case, Mr. Bush granted posthumous citizenship to an immigrant Marine, Lance Cpl. José Gutiérrez, who was killed in Iraq.
Lance Corporal Gutiérrez grew up as an orphan in Guatemala. When he reached adulthood, he came to the United States without legal documentation, and he claimed to be a minor in order to stay. He entered the foster-care system, and, eventually, was granted a green card.
Many American stories — and many military careers — have begun with a fib like Lance Corporal Gutiérrez’s. We often celebrate the chutzpah of grandparents and warriors who told small lies, breaking laws for the greater good of the family — and the country. In fact, last year, the Supreme Court unanimously decided to protect Americans who made inconsequential false statements as they sought citizenship.
Regardless of Lance Corporal Gutiérrez’s moxie and his honorable military service, we can be sure that Mr. Trump would have us believe that Lance Corporal Gutiérrez was an agent of “chaos” and “anarchy” who came to “infest” the United States. If Lance Corporal Gutiérrez had lived, under new Department of Homeland Security policies, he would have seen his government separate brave asylum-seeking families and target citizenship-seeking military recruits like himself.
It is clear that neither Secretary of Defense James Mattis nor Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will stop Mr. Trump from extending his anti-immigrant policies to the military. In the interest of national security and decency, Congress must step in.
Some members of Congress have tried to help the immigrants who have served in our military. In 2008, Lance Corporal Gutiérrez’s name was used to title a bipartisan bill that could have offered additional protections for noncitizen veterans of the armed forces. The bill died in the House. Mike Pence, then a representative from Indiana, was a co-sponsor.
Both the Senate and House Armed Service Committees should restart their efforts to protect immigrant recruits. These bodies should also begin investigating the arbitrary and capricious discharge of noncitizen recruits.
The military’s civilian leadership should be held to account for any undue violation of these soldiers’ rights. And immigrant service members deserve to be protected by a path to naturalization that is codified in federal law, rather than uncertain internal policy.
Seventy years after Truman’s order, the military remains an imperfect, evolving institution. Congress should not allow it to devolve into another nativist cudgel against immigrants.
Rob Cuthbert is an Army veteran and a former manager of the military discharge upgrade clinic at the Veteran Advocacy Project of the Urban Justice Center.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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