The Military DREAM Act: Mislabeled?

Bryan Bender writes in the Globe today about a provision buried in the immigration bill under consideration in Congress. It’s called the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.

Bender writes that the provision “would grant instant legal status and ultimately full citizenship to illegal immigrants if they enlist in the US military, an idea the Pentagon and military analysts say would boost the Pentagon’s flagging efforts to find and recruit qualified soldiers.”

Ya gotta love the way the military comes up with these acronyms that make killing and getting shot, losing legs, arms, brain function, testicles, pieces of your ass, noses, jaws, teeth, sound like a wonderful experience. Yup yup yup getting killed or maimed or psychology impaired for your country is a real DREAM.

Here’s the goodies:

Those who enlist under the provision would become eligible for a so-called Z visa, granting them probationary, or conditional, status as a legal resident – the first step toward full citizenship. Upon enlistment they would also become eligible for federal student loans and other benefits they are currently denied as undocumented immigrants.

Of course before anyone jumps at this offer, you might want to consider how well the military has been treating its soldiers the last few years. Walter Reed Hospital was just a blip. Mental health care is a joke. And you might want to start researching how much the military really pays in college costs, etcetera, that the recruiters dangle before potential raw meat.

Now what they’re looking for, according to a summary of the bill, are high school graduates “who are ‘honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, aspiring teachers, and doctors.'” If I were a little bit cynical I’d read that as ‘let’s get the best immigrant kids and kill, cripple, and maim them’.

But here’s the real kicker:

…retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a conservative commentator and military analyst…added that those eligible would probably be higher caliber than some of the recruits who have joined the Army…And they would be making the ultimate demonstration of loyalty to their adopted country, he said, putting their lives on the line.

Think about that for a minute. You put your life, your body, and your mind on the line, risking everything, and if you survive, guess what? You might get probationary status as a legal resident.

Damn, if they’re going to go out there and do the Little Psychopath’s dirty, illegal work for him they should at least get to be full citizens immediately.

The DREAM offer is like telling your illegal gardener and houseboy you might throw him a bag of leaky canned goods for his family if he behaves himself.