Robert Gates: Ending DACA Will Hurt Immigrant Troops
During the nearly five years that I was secretary of defense, 2,621 immigrants serving in the United States military became naturalized citizens while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. More than 100 immigrant troops have made the supreme sacrifice in combat during those wars. In that same period, from 2006 to 2011, a total of 45,700 immigrants who wore the uniform of the American military all across the world became American citizens.
I was honored to serve alongside all of them, and humbled by their sense of duty, by their willingness to risk life and limb for a country they yearned to call their own.
I attended a number of naturalization ceremonies for these soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors. At one ceremony, in October 2008 at Fort Bragg, N.C., 41 immigrant service members, men and women from 26 countries, became citizens. I told them it was one of the true glories of our country that when it comes to being an American, you don’t have to be a descendant of the founders or the colonists who came on the Mayflower. What counts is whether you believe in America’s ideals, follow its laws and pitch in for the common good.
Quoting Abraham Lincoln, I said that immigrants can read the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence and feel that “they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration.”
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More than 800 so-called Dreamers who received temporary authorization to stay and work in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, recently revoked by President Trump, are now serving in the armed forces. They are able to serve because of a program I authorized in 2008 aimed at recruiting immigrants with medical, foreign language or other specialized skills. The program was extended when we found that these recruits had lower attrition rates than other recruits and, in particular, contributed invaluable language skills to Special Operations units. More than 350 additional DACA recipients have signed contracts with the Army and are awaiting basic training. If Congress fails to act, these recruits’ permits will expire. They will not be eligible to serve and will instead be at risk of deportation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/opinion/robert-gates-daca-immigrant-troops.html