Troops Worry Relatives Could Be Deported

[babylonsister]

Troops Worry Relatives Could Be Deported
JULIANA BARBASSA | August 10, 2007 06:38 PM EST | AP

snip//

About 35,000 legal immigrants without citizenship are now serving in the military, and nearly 34,000 other service members have taken the citizenship oath since 2001. That means when immigrant soldiers ship off to Iraq, they may carry with them a worry their American-born counterparts are less likely to share: that their family members might be deported while they are away.

"Every base has immigration problems," said Margaret Stock, an Army reservist and immigration attorney teaching at United States Military Academy at West Point. "The government they're fighting for is the same government that's trying to deport their families."

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Eduardo Gonzalez is a citizen whose wife entered the country illegally from Guatemala when she was 5 years old. Now a young adult, she is in deportation proceedings.

"If I'm willing to die for the United States, why can't I just be allowed to be with my family?" Gonzalez asked.

Supporters of tighter immigration controls say giving the relatives of service members a free pass would only create an incentive for immigrants to enlist to legalize undocumented family members. They also oppose narrow solutions addressed at individual cases like that of Yaderlin Jimenez.

The Pentagon has long recognized that military life can be a strain on service members' families, and that ensuring their well-being is a crucial part of maintaining troop morale. But troops' families do not enjoy any special treatment when it comes to immigration infractions, Stock said.

"We give relief to soldiers from everything else _ from oppressive loans, from a landlord that's trying to evict them while they're deployed," Stock said. "Someone at the top needs to decide which is most important _ to keep soldiers' families together, because we know it's important for morale, or break them up in the interest of enforcing immigration law."

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070810/immigration-military-families/

[SteveM]

1. Hmm, food for thought. What if the Democrats proposed a bill...

which would give legal immigrant status to the immediate family members of an immigrant soldier? Would the military experience a boost in enlistments? Would the GOP be reduced to making "some are more equal than others" arguments against such legislation?

[babylonsister]

2. I don't know what the answer is, but I can't imagine having to be in the

hell hole that is Iraq while simultaneously having to worry about whether your family might be deported. That's just not right.

[treestar]

3. Too ironic

This must make freeper heads explode. People willing to risk their lives for the U.S. who have foreign family members. Must not make sense to them.

Restrictionists lose perspective. It'll encourage people to sign up for the military? They have tunnel vision and think that this country is SO great that people will do ANYTHING, including fighting in Chimpy's war, to live in it.

If they want to come that badly, let them come.