Posted on 04/24/2006 12:27:36 PM PDT by Crackingham
Marcial Rodriguez, a U.S. Marine who grew up in a Mexican farming village, is offended that the country he went to war for might deport his relatives who are living here illegally. Three months after the lance corporal returned to Ohio from the fighting in Iraq, the U.S. House adopted a bill that would make Rodriguez's cousin a felon for being one of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants. Rodriguez, 20, said he enlisted in the Marine reserves to repay the debt he felt owed to a country that had given him an education and a home for his family.
"People from many different countries are fighting, not just from Mexico," he said. "We want to participate in this country."
It is unclear how many soldiers find their loyalties similarly divided, but at a time when Pentagon has stepped up recruiting of Hispanics to fill recruiting quotas, experts say a crackdown on illegal immigration would undoubtedly cause resentment in the ranks.
"How do you tell them we're going to deport their parents and grandparents?" asked Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a group that has encouraged Hispanics who do not plan to attend college to join the military. "That's not America."
Hispanics are increasingly joining the military as their numbers have grown, according to a 2004 study on Marine recruitment by CNA Corp., a research firm in Arlington, Va. The study found Hispanics have done exceptionally well in the Marines, with boot-camp attrition rates well below average. Hispanics accounted for 16.5 percent of Marine recruits last year, up from 13.4 percent in 2002 and 11.7 percent in 1997, the firm said.
Soldiers and veterans have been a popular presence at a wave of pro-immigrant rallies across the country in recent weeks. In Houston, speakers at a rally this month repeatedly pointed to people in uniform on a nearby bridge, and they received roaring applause, said Eliseo Medina, a top official of the Service Employees International Union.
"They stick out like a sore thumb," Medina said. "When (demonstrators) see people in uniform, it gives them tremendous pride and validates that we are contributing to this country."
At a pro-immigration rally April 9 that drew 50,000 people in San Diego, Hispanic veterans from World War II carried signs that read "We Fought in Your Wars," said Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran.
"After serving our country, to see our relatives now criminalized through this legislation is provoking a lot of people," said Mariscal, director of Chicano studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Don't worry Hispanics legal and illegal your very best friend, YOUR president will take care of you because YOUR president loves you all!
Seems you have no problema participating in criminal activity
Hispanic veterans' relatives whoare illegals are, well, illegal. What is this article?
I would say, "Thank you for serving this country. If your cousin wants to do the same, tell him how. Then he'll be legal, too."
That is so nice. Now go home to your own country because you obviously don't believe America is your country.
CPT 2banana. Veteran.
But they don't want to "participate" in the legal immigration system.
One obvious solution might be to allow amnesty to immediate relatives of anybody who enlists in the US Armed Forces. Mum, Dad, Brother, Sister, Grandma, Grandpa.
This kills two birds with one stone: you get much-needed recruits, and you get a handle on some of the illegal immigration. Win-win.
Saw the Prez this morning......
Critics of FDR used to say he was the best president Britain ever had......
Well......
without a doubt...Bush is the best president Mexico ever had...
hey you gringos......I'm the president of Mexamericana!!
Major disappointment, we all know where we stand, and he added INSULT yet again to the very people who voted for him with his usual jobs Americans WON'T do.
These foreign people are bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Tough sh!t, Marcie!
We have laws here, something you probably never learned about in your Mexican village, and we'd really like to live by them.
A nation is not a game of "musical chairs." It is about ethnicity, lines of descent and a shared history. The fact that three of my grandparents came to Cincinnati in their youth, and were accepted, has never seemed to me a reason to favor immigration from the lands that they left. It is rather a reason to defend the society they found here, from all others. The population of America was 75,000,000, when the last of my forebears arrived--substantially less when the other two mentioned came. We are now approximating 300,000,000 inhabitants, legal and otherwise. Every major city suffers from gridlock.
Without even getting into the question of who is or is not assimilable, we do not need any new wave of immigrants. Put America first, not some nebulous notion of humanity. (See Immigration & The American Future.)
William Flax
Well so did my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my uncles, my brother and me. And we did not realize this sacrifice just to let anyone dance across our border and share the fruits of our labor. How about just a little sacrifice? Like filling out an application and waiting in line?
Thanks for your service, now ask me if I care that you're upset your relatives may be deported.
"They stick out like a sore thumb," Medina said. "When (demonstrators) see people in uniform, it gives them tremendous pride and validates that we are contributing to this country."
IIRC, the UCMJ prohibits servicemembers from participating in such rallies while in uniform.
Does this fellow have political ambition?
I would like to ask him if that's the reason he joined in the first place. There might be a pattern developing here?
I guess you didn't read his sign
"We Fought in Your Wars,"
He could have said "US Veteran" or "Proud to have served" but he instead said "We fought in YOUR wars"
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