Torres, who was born in Mexico and migrated legally to the United States at age 5, is afraid to venture far from home as President Donald Trump works to carry out his mass deportation agenda. Torres has a green card residency permit and a record of service in the U.S. military, but he was detained by immigration authorities last year under the Biden administration. He fears that U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement raids under Trump could only mean more trouble.
“Do I want to leave this nation? No. I want to serve it. I want to continue to serve my community,” Torres told The Associated Press. “It breaks my heart that I fought for this nation to raise my children in this nation, and now I have to pull my children out of this nation if I get deported. Then what did I fight for?”
There are well more than 100,000 military veterans living in the U.S. who do not have citizenship, according to estimates in recent years by the Congressional Research Service. Despite military recruiters frequently describing service as a fast-track to citizenship for troops and their family members, the Republican administration’s immigration agenda is putting them at renewed risk of deportation.
Im no fan of the armed services but the existence of ‘veterans who lack citizenship’ is a pretty disgusting indication of how they treat the people who would kill and die for the military.
I thought that serving in the military is one of the ways people from other countries become citizens. I know that’s how my grandpa did it. I’m guessing they made it infinitely more complicated now
If its anything like the healthcare systems I navigate for people with disabilities, its probably far from automatic and requires multiple bureaucratic steps, documents, and phone calls over a long period of time and constant checking on the status of the application, or they’d just assume you don’t want it.
Even in Robert Heinlein’s fascist dystopian world in the novel Starship Troopers “Service guarantees citizenship”.
Only 18% of veterans receive the benefits they’re entitled to, and that was before Trump’s second term.
Look up “buffalo soldiers.”