an illegal Chinese immigrant US soldier deployed on the Mexico border

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

 

He’s a US soldier deployed on the Mexico border. He’s also an illegal Chinese immigrant

• The soldier says he avoids US customs and border officers out of fear they will learn his status as an undocumented migrant
• He is one of thousands of undocumented immigrants who applied to the US military on the understanding they would be naturalised

 

“I’m an illegal immigrant,” the Chinese-born soldier said by phone.

His duties do not often intersect with Customs and Border Protection agents, he said, but he has avoided them out of fear they will learn one of 5,400 troops in their orbit is in violation of immigration law.

That has placed him in the unusual situation of serving a nation that has not recognised him as a citizen, despite promises from the Pentagon to quickly naturalise skilled immigrants in exchange for service, as it had done for thousands of troops since 2009.

. . .

And as the Pentagon has increasingly worried about China’s military ambitions, it seemed like the perfect time, then, for the Chinese-born soldier to offer his skills. He was expected to begin training in August 2016, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

That is about when everything started to go very wrong. The Pentagon programme he enlisted through, Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, was beginning its year-long implosion.

Immigrant recruits commonly timed their enlistments so their student and visitor visas could carry them through with enough time to provide legal protection. But the Pentagon’s security screening was so slow that “some number of 4,300 MAVNI applicants” had fallen out of lawful status as they waited, according to an internal agency memo dated September 30, 2016.