Which Military Construction Projects Are Losing Funds to Build Trump’s Wall?

By Walter Ewing www.immigrationimpact.com

The Trump administration is raiding the Department of Defense’s budget to fund construction of its border wall. According to Pentagon officials, 127 military construction projects will be canceled in order to free up $3.6 billion to build 175 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Trump previously said this would happen when he declared a “national emergency” along the southern border in February 2019. At the time, he designated a total of about $8 billion in existing federal funds for wall construction—$3.6 billion of which was to be diverted from the military construction budget.

The diverted funds are coming out of the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget and take a disproportionate toll on military construction projects that had been slated for congressional districts represented by Democrats.

The canceled or delayed projects include:

• A childcare center at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Parents say the center is in desperate need of repair, as it deals with frequent power outages, spotty air conditioning, broken equipment, and damage to the infrastructure after a car hit the building.
• Roads near Fort Meade, Maryland (site of the National Security Agency). These roads have already been in varying stages of construction for a while, to residents’ annoyance.
• A hazardous materials warehouse in Norfolk, Virginia. There is concern that the Navy base warehouse needs to be replaced.
• A cyber-operations facility at Joint Base Langley-Eustis near Newport News, Virginia. The facility will lose $10 million and face possible startup delays.
• A much-needed new middle school for students living at Fort Campbell, a military base along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. The current school suffers from cramped classrooms and outdated equipment.
• Over $400 million worth of construction projects in Puerto Rico. Most of the halted projects were for repairs after Hurricane Maria.

Some lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee are questioning the administration’s priorities. Why bleed money from 127 projects rather than go through the proper congressional channels to fund the wall?

History has shown that when barriers are erected along the border, people don’t stop crossing. They simply attempt to cross at more remote and dangerous locations. That is why, according to Border Patrol statistics, the southwest border witnesses approximately one death per day.

For this reason, until recently, prominent federal officials publicly doubted the usefulness of a border wall. Outgoing Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Gil Kerlikowske said in January 2017:

“I think that anyone who’s been familiar with the southwest border and the terrain… recognizes that building a wall along the entire southwest border is probably not going to work,” adding that he does not “think it is feasible” or the “smartest way to use taxpayer money on infrastructure.”

Draining the Defense Department to fund President Trump’s crusade for an extravagantly expensive border wall that won’t actually work is a waste of federal funds. It will yield no appreciable benefit for either U.S. border security or the U.S. taxpayer.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4451-Which-Military-Construction-Projects.html

Serving Our Country Is No Longer A Way For Immigrant Soldiers To Gain Citizenship

Written by Guillermo Cantor

Immigrant soldiers in the U.S. military often use their service as a catalyst to apply for and gain citizenship. Traditionally, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) honored that service with a fast-tracked pathway to naturalization—granting soldiers citizenship to a country they already risked their lives for seemed beyond fair.

But that has recently changed. New USCIS data shows that the numbers of immigrant soldiers applying for and earning citizenship have plummeted. In total, military naturalizations have dropped 65 percent since the Trump administration created stricter policies for immigrant service members. 

In October 2017, the President Trump directed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to make policy changes that added additional barriers for non-citizen service members. The new policies reversed the military’s long-standing practice of expediting immigrant soldiers’ citizenship applications, saying it was no longer an option. The policy changes added more background checks and significantly extended the time someone must serve before they can receive the needed paperwork to pursue citizenship. 

Additionally, the Pentagon implemented another policy that temporarily halted all enlistments involving green card holders hoping to join the Army Reserve and National Guard. 

The ramifications hit immediately—both the number of people approved for citizenship and the number of those even applying dropped. 

The first publicly available data on military naturalizations since the implementation shows the number of immigrant applicants dropped from 3,132 directly prior to the policy change to 1,069 in the beginning of fiscal year 2018. 

Out of those that did apply, fewer immigrant service members gained U.S. citizenship than before. 2,123 service members became naturalized in the last quarter of fiscal year 2017. That number fell to only 755 by December 2018. 

In fact, the rate of citizenship denial for immigrant soldiers is now higher than those of foreign-born civilians. USCIS denied near 17 percent of all immigrant service members’ applications for citizenship, compared to just 11 percent for foreign-born civilians. 

This shift hasn’t settled well with retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Eaton. 

“The U.S. has had a long-standing tradition of immigrants come to the U.S. and have military service provide a path to citizenship,” said Eaton. “To have this turnaround, where they are actually taking a back seat to the civilian population strikes me as a bizarre turn of events.” 

Beyond the decreased numbers, this change will likely lower morale among immigrant troops. It’s difficult to imagine what an immigrant could do to prove their love of country beyond serving in the U.S. military. 

Crippled morale is, simply, never a good thing for any military. These policies that hurt immigrant soldiers will in time hurt the American public by making our military less engaged and ready for duty. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4187-immigrant-soldiers-applying-for-and-earning-citizenship-have-plummeted.html

The Military’s Strategic and Recruitment Goals Fail When Immigrants Can’t Serve

Written by Melissa Cruz in Humanitarian Protection, How the Immigration System Works 
 
The United States Armed Forces has long valued the contributions of immigrants—from the War of 1812 to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, U.S.-born and immigrant soldiers have fought alongside one another with no concern for nationality or immigration status. Yet, within the first several months of the Trump presidency, the administration has created additional and unnecessary barriers for immigrants looking to serve.

A detailed history of immigrants’ service in the military is outlined in a new report from The National Immigration Forum, For the Love of Country: New Americans Serving in Our Armed Forces. The report details the military’s need for a broader pool of eligible applicants and how immigrants could—if allowed—fulfill that need with critical foreign-language, medical, and cultural skills.

Approximately 40,000 immigrants serve in the U.S. military, with 5,000 noncitizen soldiers typically enlisting each year. As of 2016, approximately 511,000 immigrants were veterans. Moreover, 11 percent of all U.S. veterans come from an immigrant background; they are either foreign-born themselves or have an immigrant parent. In addition, 20 percent of all Medal of Honor recipients—the highest distinction given in the military—are immigrants.

The sheer volume of immigrants willing to serve is critical as the pool of eligible applicants nation-wide continues to shrink. Accounting for all of the factors that render young adults unavailable or unqualified for the military, only 13 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are eligible to serve.

The Army, for instance, estimates that out of a total target recruitment population of 33.4 million, only 136,000 young people (0.4 percent) would be qualified to serve. For its own recruitment efforts, the Army estimates that it will need to spend an extra $300 million in advertisements to recruit 6,000 additional soldiers to fulfill its target of 68,500 recruits by the end of the fiscal year.

By actively recruiting immigrants, the military could significantly reduce this gap. According to the report, immigration is predicted to be the only future source of net growth in the U.S. population among 18- to 29-year-olds, the target age range for military recruits. Currently, the number of noncitizens who are both recruitable and in this desired age range is approximately 1.2 million.

Beyond the numbers, the talent immigrant recruits provide is unique. From 2009 to 2016, the military made a special effort to recruit noncitizens specifically for their ability to speak certain languages, cultural competency, and medical skills. Noncitizen recruits are also far more likely to stay for the entire length of their service, saving the military valuable money and time.

Yet the Trump administration’s new, additional barriers for immigrants wishing to serve have largely blocked the Armed Forces from accessing this group of young people.

In October 2017, the administration reversed a long-standing policy that allowed immigrants serving in the military to fast-track their pathway to citizenship. Now, in addition to completing an extensive set of background checks, immigrant soldiers must navigate new bureaucratic obstacles to obtain citizenship.

The Pentagon is also reportedly considering a halt to The Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) recruitment program, which was open to noncitizens (and even some undocumented immigrants) who possessed critical language or medical skills. If the program is halted, 1,800 troops recruited through the MAVNI program could lose their enlistment contracts. It is estimated that roughly 1,000 of those immigrant recruits could be out of status, opening them up to the risk of deportation.

In addition, the Pentagon has also implemented a new policy that indefinitely halts all enlistments involving green-card-holderslooking to join the Army Reserve and National Guard.

There is also an unacceptable future potentially awaiting some immigrant veterans upon returning to the United States: the risk of deportation.

Should immigrant veterans—some of whom battle unemployment, physical, and psychological stress after returning from deployment—ever commit a crime that is considered an “ aggravated felony” under immigration law, they could face deportation and permanent banishment from the country that they served.

The immigrants serving in the United States Armed Forces must be treated with respect, just as any U.S.-born soldier would expect. This means actively recruiting immigrants who wish to serve, as well as giving them all of the benefits for which they are entitled upon returning home. To do anything less is un-American.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 
http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3717-How-the-Immigration-System-Works.html