Join the Army, Be a US Citizen in 6 Months

Times of India ^ | 16 Feb 2009, 0403 hrs IST | Chidanand Rajghatta

[lewisglad]

WASHINGTON: For decades, high-skilled professionals from across the world, particularly India, have fought their way to US citizenship through legal immigration channels — a process that can take up to a decade or more. Now, Uncle Sam is making it easy. Fight your way — literally — to American citizenship in as little as six months.

In a far reaching proposal, the US military will open its doors to skilled immigrant guest workers (such as those who hold H-1B visas) who have lived in the US for a minimum of two years. The move is aimed at offsetting the poor recruitment intake from traditional sources at a time the US military is stretched thin by deployments in Iraq and the Af-Pak theater.

US Green card holders, also known as permanent residents, have long been eligible to enlist in the military. But this is the first time since the Vietnam War that the armed forces will be open to temporary immigrants and offer them a path to citizenship, a move that in some ways amounts to outsourcing its wars.

The program comes at a time when skilled immigrants in the US are facing a slowing job market, offering them an avenue to turn potential pink slips into not just Green cards, but citizenship — if they are so obsessed about their American Dream.

A pilot program that will take in 1000 immigrant recruits nationwide will begin in New York City in the first year, according the New York Times, which first reported the development on Sunday.

By going to the pool of skilled immigrants, recruiters actually expect to improve the quality of US military personnel, since most foreign skilled guest workers typically have more education, foreign language skills and professional expertise than many Americans who enlist. This is expected to help the military to fill shortages in medical care, language interpretation and field intelligence analysis.

The program is particularly germane to Indian guest workers who constitute the largest segment of skilled foreign workers in the US, and although Spanish-speaking Latinos constitute the largest group of immigrants, they are largely unskilled.

The one-year pilot program in New York City that will recruit 550 personnel (rest 450 will come from across the country) explicitly excludes Spanish speakers, while being open to immigrants who speak one or more of 35 languages, including Hindi/Urdu, Tamil, Arabic, Chinese, Nepalese, Pashto etc. US officials have said in the past that they sorely lacked field intelligence operatives with requisite language skills to be deployed in the Af-Pak theater.

The army’s program will also include about 300 medical professionals to be recruited nationwide. If the pilot program, which is restricted to the army and some other agencies, succeeds, it will expand for all branches of the military

[Quix]

Or are you asserting that you’re on the Oligarchy’s side?

You want America shredded?

[DogBarkTree]

THe Army will do what it’s told to do.

[Dante3]

Good idea - an American Foreign Legion. And no need to provide citizenship.

So now US citizenship is for sale, most of them to the types of people we would be better without.

[livius]

You’re assuming they mean a real skill. I think anybody who speaks Arabic or Swahili (simply because that’s his native language) is going to be counted as having a valuable skill. Only the naive would think this is directed at Indians and Hispanics; it’s meant to bring in more Middle Easterners and Africans and put them right in the midst of our military.

Recruitment targets have been met and we’re not in need right with a particular unspoken objective in mind.

IMHO, it’s to develop a basically foreign military that is loyal not to the US, but to one person only. Yes, that would be The One.

[livius]

Oops - that middle sentence should read:

Recruitment targets have been met and we’re not in need right now - this has been done with a particular unspoken objective in mind, just the way the “bailout” had an entirely different objective.

[SuziQ]

Recruitment targets have been met and we’re not in need right with a particular unspoken objective in mind.

Those targets are all well and good, but just meeting a target doesn't mean that you get folks with a particular skill. The article mentioned Asian Indians specifically, because their knowledge of Hindi made it easier for them to be able to understand various other Near Eastern languages. Since Pakistan is central to the problem with the Taliban, and other radical Islamist groups, it would be supremely useful to have people in the military who have those important language skills.

I don't believe this program has anything to do with That One, because it was around before he was ever elected.

[livius]

This particular program is new. The old one - which has been around forever - let green card holders get fast tracked to citizenship by serving in the military.

The people in this case are not even green card holders. This was done briefly during the Vietnam war, but hasn’t been done since then. And there’s no reason to do it now.

[Quix]

To OThuga . . . or whatever other puppet the Oligarchy puts in place at the time.

[GAB-1955]

Oh, you don't think the Army doesn't have friends in Congress and among veterans’ groups? They can tell the President, “Sure, we're forming your unit... where's the money for it coming from? What about changes to the TOE?”

When I was a lieutenant, I was told “Don't give your men impossible orders.” You think General Jones won't tell President Tingod that?

[livius]

Yes, it could be anybody. But I bet it’s going to be Bambi, because he has all the important credentials: he’s a foreigner with no connection, emotionally, psychologically or intellectually, to the US; and the press loves him, so that his image will be so carefully manipulated that it probably won’t be long before we’ll all have to carry his “collected pearls of wisdom” with us at all times.

Also, one thing nobody takes into consideration is that Barry LOVES being the “ruler.” When you see him drifting along with his eyes closed and that creepy smile on his face, you’re seeing a sociopath who has reached his ultimate goal. So if the Dems think they’re going to be able to swap him out for another Messiah, they’re sadly mistaken. He’s not going to let them get away with it.

That’s why I think he wants to stack the military. I will bet you’ll be seeing tons of “outreach” to the Middle East and SE Asia (but not to India, no matter what he’s saying - think Indonesia instead) and Africa, because those are the people he wants here. He’s one of theirs, and they will be loyal to him.

[Quix]

You could well be right.

However, do NOT underestimate the Oligarchy’s capacity to

TAKE ANYONE OUT

who gets in their way or merely alarms them greatly.

Kennedy was one . . . they became alarmed he wasn’t going to play along on a number of points, including the UFO stuff, reportedly . . . as well as the Fed R . . . anyone that messes much with THAT component needs to have their affairs in order.

Of course, OThuga may have lots of safeguards built into his programming . . . LOTS.

[Quix]

I’m increasingly curious, Dear Heart . . .

YOUR GUESSTIMATE, PLEASE—AND ANYONE ELSE’S GUESSTIMATE, PLEASE . . .

what PERCENTAGE

of

A) FR AS A WHOLE ___________%

AND FR SOCIAL STARS AND LEADERSHIP _______________%

REALLY ARE AWARE AND AWAKE TO WHAT THE OLIGARCHY IS UP TO?

[Caramelgal]

My father-in-law became a US citizen in much this manner circa WWII.

My dad was born in Norway. He came here when he was 8 years old.

He had just turned 19 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and like most of the young guys from his neighborhood, he went to enlist.

He tried enlisting in the Navy, then the Marines, then the Army, but none of the military branches would take him because he wasn’t a citizen. Or perhaps his immigration papers weren’t quite in order? I’m not sure. I do know his mother, my grandmother came here after she was widowed, a few years before going back for my father, using the ocean liner ticket of a friend of hers who decided not to go. (Could it have been that my Grandmother wasn’t quite legal? – I don’t know for sure :),)

Anyway, my father went back to work as an apprentice carpenter on the Long Island railroad and then he got drafted by the Army. As railway workers were considered essential to the war effort, he could have taken a deferment but chose not to.

My father shipped out from San Francisco with his infantry unit for the South Pacific, fought in the Solomon Islands, the second battle of Manila, and in Bougainville, and served until the end of the war with honor.

After the war and after he married my mother, he went through the naturalization process.

The judge officiating at the swearing in ceremony, told him that it was just a formality since when he took the oath of military service, he had for all intense purposes, become a defacto citizen. The judge told my father that he didn’t have to go through with the ceremony as he had already proved himself as an American citizen.

But my dad went through with it anyway as he felt it was important, especially since my mother was then carrying my older brother.

Although he wasn’t born here, there was no more fiercely patriotic, red, white and true blue American than my dad. And he knew and understood American history better than many natural born citizens.

[DogBarkTree]

I hope to God you are right but at this point I think Obama is unstoppable.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

Once a soldier and young,

now and forever,

They are still soldiers

http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66978

.

[BOATSNM8]

Subic Bay closed in the early nineties and the Philipino population of the Navy has decreased as all the older ones have retired. It took me about 4-5 months to get down that accent.:)

[gtsamson]

If they are willing to fight, bleed, and possibly die for this country, they are exactly the type of people we need as citizens.

[The Pack Knight]

I think it's sad that many of us who have concerns about our lax immigration policy are being branded "nativists". I think it's essential that we gain control of our borders and make sure that only those who actually want to become Americans are given the opportunity for citizenship.

However, I want nothing to do with nativism. The notion that just being born here in and of itself makes one more American than a naturalized citizen who chose this country and earned the right to be here flies in the face of everything that made this country great.

[GAB-1955]

He's not unstoppable. All we have to do is hold together to our principles (I'm coming around to giving in to ‘moderate’ Republicans), find a new generation of candidates, and organize opposition to Obama. There are enough of us that he cannot put the pressure on all his opponents. He'll only try to make a few examples, but that can be stopped with public pressure.

[AuntB]

“
However, I want nothing to do with nativism. The notion that just being born here in and of itself makes one more American than a naturalized citizen who chose this country and earned the right to be here flies in the face of everything that made this country great.”

Many naturalized citizens are the biggest nativists around. The left has reinvented the word to disparage it. Don’t buy the lie.

Tony Blankley, for one, is proud to be called a ‘nativist’.