The article ISN'T about what you say it is. People who are legal immigrants have ALWAYS been able to join the armed services. Many of them have fought and DIED for this country. Your small-minded bigoted slap at people like my step-father is just inexcusable.
Go crawl back under that rock with the rest of your Invisible(Christian Identity)Church.
Nelson Reyes, head of the Central American Refugee Center, an immigrant group that helps immigrants living in southwest Houston, called Bush's move a "show of good will," but he called on the president to go further by helping those immigrants who can't get into the military. By the time they qualify to enlist in the Army, immigrants have already overcome their most difficult legal hurdles.
Foreigners are allowed in the armed forces if they have obtained a Green Card granting legal permanent residency. It's the Green Card, rather than citizenship, that generally is the most difficult to obtain.
1. I highly doubt this is limited to Hispanics, though that's clearly who President Bush is pandering to... again.
2. Hesham Mohammed Hadayet, the Egyptian LAX shooter had a green card.
LINK3. "Take back the Senate!" Rah rah rah...
At the very least, they should get citizenship before they serve.
All in all, I don't have a problem with it. Our manpower is insufficient at the moment.
I think the Romans tried this some time back. It resulted in a military force that was made up primarily of foreigners who owed their allegiance to the military commander rather than the state, creating the scene for the rise of the Imperial System and eventual collapse of the Roman State.
I don't have a problem with immigrants - we are all descended from them. I DO have a problem with non-citizens in the military, or the granting of citizenship as a reward to non-citizens for enlisting. Military service in America's armed forces should be a privlege, not a commodity to be sold or traded.
A Matter of Faith: Islam is Fastest-Growing Religion in the U.S.
Abdullah Yusuf, center, prays at the Masjid As-Salam in Sacramento
on Friday. Yusuf says he was raised Catholic but converted to Islam
because he liked the teachings of the Qur'an.Latino Muslims
In April, California State University, Sacramento, hosted a forum on the "Islamic Presence in Latin America" before and after Columbus. One of the speakers, Salvadoran-born AbdulHadi Bazurto (President of Latin American Muslim Unity), said the more he examined his roots, the more he questioned the validity of Catholicism in his life. "Since the day the Spanish arrived, we as people have suffered a lot," he said. "Christianity's 'white God' concept was harmful to our people, who were definitely not white."
Another speaker, Daniel Denton, a Stockton elementary school teacher who was born in Mexico, said he was a hard-drinking veteran of the Gulf War when he began to explore Islam in 1994. At the invitation of Muslims at Delta College, he went to a mosque. "There was a carpet on the floor, and the walls were bare. I wondered, 'Where is everything?' and then I realized that was everything. If you go to a Catholic church, every few feet they have an image or a statue, but in Islam, there is no association between God and any image."
Denton also was impressed by the Islamic belief that each individual will be judged by their deeds on Judgment Day. That night, he took the shahada, the Muslim vow that says "There is only one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."
When he started fasting for Ramadan, "I heard my relatives in Stockton were calling my mom in San Diego and telling her I had become a terrorist and was doing drugs," Denton said. "When I went down to San Diego toward the end of Ramadan, I had lost 15 pounds and was starting to grow my beard. My mom was just in tears for days."
But, Denton said, his mother soon realized that instead of partying, he was staying home and talking to her as he had never done before.
"As she began to see the change, she came to accept it, and now she's happy. There's a saying in Islam that goes, 'Heaven lies at the feet of the mother. You have to treat her well at all times, take care of her.' "
Denton, 29, sees similarities between Islamic and Latino culture. "I've noticed that if you take away the crosses, the alcohol and the pork, the smells in my house are similar to Muslim homes. So is the behavior -- the respect for family."
Link to article HERE.
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California State University, Sacramento, hosted a forum on the "Islamic Presence in Latin America" before and after Columbus. One of the speakers, Salvadoran-born AbdulHadi Bazurto (President of Latin American Muslim Unity), said the more he examined his roots, the more he questioned the validity of Catholicism in his life. "Since the day the Spanish arrived, we as people have suffered a lot," he said. "Christianity's 'white God' concept was harmful to our people, who were definitely not white."
Our tax dollars at work.