In their desperate rush to paint President Trump as a brutal xenophobe hell-bent on deporting even the best young immigrants, the media have botched a series of important immigration stories. First, it was the separation of children from their parents at the border, a policy that began under the Obama administration and was mandated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; now, it’s booting unvetted immigrants from the military.
On Thursday, the Associated Press ran with this stunning headline: “US Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits.” Now, you might think from that headline that the U.S. Army was quietly discharging immigrant recruits . . . for the sin of being immigrants. But that’s not true. In paragraph 4 of the article, we learn that some of those discharged were told “they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.” Both of which seem like pretty good reasons to discharge potential members of the military.
Only buried some 37 paragraphs into the story do we learn that some 110,000 members of the military have gained citizenship since September 11, 2001 — which means that a few dozen who were booted for unspecified reasons is a rounding error. We also know that there are some 70,000 non-naturalized members of the military.
We also know that just because you sign up to the military doesn’t mean you get in. So what appears to be happening here is that some people who signed up aren’t being taken because the DoD hasn’t finished their background checks or has spotted red flags.
So, is the Trump administration seriously cracking down on good, solid immigrants wanting to join the military? Thus far, no evidence has been presented that suggests the story is true.
Par for the course for the Trump-hating media.