The debate over letting unauthorized immigrants serve in the military

Earlier this week, the Obama Administration announced that it was pausing its review of deportation policies until the end of summer, in order to give House Republicans time to pass immigration reform. Now, it looks like they’re doing the same with the smaller issue of letting unauthorized immigrants serve in the military.

On Friday, the Huffington Post reported that the Pentagon has a plan in place to expand the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program (MAVNI), which is currently open to legal immigrants with specialized skills but which the Pentagon wants to expand to unauthorized immigrants who’ve received deferred action from the Obama administration. Only a day later, the New York Times reported the White House is delaying that plan until August as well as the broader deportation review. The reason is the same: the White House believes any executive action on immigration would prevent House Republicans passing any immigration legislation this year.

Yesterday, news broke that the Obama administration plans to let some unauthorized immigrants who’d received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status enlist in the military, by expanding an existing program for immigrant enlistees. But the woman who designed that program says the administration’s proposal is an empty promise -- no unauthorized immigrant would actually be able to enlist under its plan.

Margaret Stock won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2013 for her work on immigrants in the military -- including coming up with the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program. MAVNI allows legal immigrants with particular language skills or medical expertise to enlist in the military and get expedited citizenship. That’s the program that, according to Friday’s report, the Pentagon plans to expand to immigrants who’ve received deferred action. But as of 2012, the requirements for enlisting under MAVNI include what’s called a “Single Scope Background Investigation,” or SSBI -- an investigation used throughout the government, usually to give people security clearances. And according to Stock, it’s impossible for an unauthorized immigrant, with or without temporary “deferred action” protection, to pass an SSBI.

The Pentagon has approved a new plan to let certain unauthorized immigrants join the military.

Currently, young unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the country before the age of 16 are eligible for protection from deportation and work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which President Obama announced in June 2012. However, receiving deferred action didn’t make immigrants eligible to enlist in military.

For a moment last week, it actually looked like the House of Representatives might take a vote on an immigration bill — something they’ve successfully avoided doing since the beginning of this Congress.

The bill, called the ENLIST Act, would allow unauthorized immigrants who want to serve in the military to enlist — and would give them green cards once they did. It was written by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), with 26 Republicans signed on to cosponsor. Denham was lobbying Republican leadership to let him put the ENLIST Act up as an amendment to a defense authorization bill.