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Marquis de La Fayette |
While it is extremely unlikely that we would have
military officers, particularly senior officers coming to us from foreign
countries today (most capable officers are from foreign countries who are
perceived as potential enemies, if not current ones), we do have an active pool
of volunteers willing to enlist for citizenship or enhancement of citizenship.
When I was on my first ship some fifty years ago,
the services were just getting used to operating without racial and ethnic
discrimination, with some rates closed to non-Caucasians. I remember being struck by the fact that
virtually all the mess rates on the ship were filled by Filipinos, a fact I now
realized was due to as much a path to citizenship as to the close bond
Filipinos had with the U.S. military from World War II. The huge Philippine community in Southern
California is testimony that many had duty stations in this area.

After 9/11 Congress allowed a different opportunity
with a program called Military Accessions Vital to National Interests (Mavni) that offered citizenship after
serving in the military as language interpreters or in skilled areas of need,
one of which was dentistry. The thinking
was that it would provide more security than hiring interpreters from for
instance, Afghanistan. Considering the terrorist
attack by an Army Psychologist at Fort Hood, that may not have been entirely
well-placed trust. This law is due to
expire in September and, considering our drawback from Afghanistan, may be
allowed to expire.
In many respects Mavni is a militarization of the
H-1B program, which accelerates citizenship by providing service in skilled
fields short of legitimate U.S. citizen volunteers.
Ironically, the H-1B program has morphed into a system for providing
educators. Speaking as a parent of a
teacher, the need for educators is likely restricted more by earning capacity
than by citizenship. There was an interesting
article in the WSJ recently commenting on the alarming number of days teachers
are absent from the classroom (18 per year), a fact that makes curricula static
as lesson plans become more review than advancement.
In speaking to an Army Recruiter recently, we agreed
that the military should be expanded as a choice to accelerating citizenship. This makes sense for many reasons. After four years in the military a prospective
citizen would have the skills to be employed and less likely to need social
assistance. They would also be
proficient in English and would likely have developed an investment in their
newly-adopted country. After all, isn’t
that what happened to La Fayette?
My next post is inspired by a recent series on NPR
suggesting the U.S. has lapsed into a practice long considered not only unwise,
but illegal: a Debtor’s Prison. I think
you will find it interesting.
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