Listen to the entire program with Sonali Kolhatkar<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/home\/graphics\/hector_barajas.jpg\")
It is a strange fact that in the United States you can serve in the military if you’re an immigrant, yet you cannot vote, or be guaranteed any of the rights that citizens enjoy – such as the right to remain in the US legally. In late September, the Pentagon announced that it would begin allowing undocumented immigrants to serve in the Armed Forces, upsetting Republicans. Under a program called Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI), undocumented immigrants who qualify as so-called “Dreamers” \u2013 people who came to the US without papers as minors \u2013 could potentially serve. <\/p>\n
But thousands of immigrants to the United States from countries like Mexico, have already served in the military. Many of them have been deported after returning home from their deployments, some to a country they barely know. Even though the US Army is authorized by law to expedite the immigration applications of those who serve, newer laws require deportation of any non-naturalized person who has been convicted of a crime. <\/p>\n
Some of the crimes for which immigrant veterans have been deported include offenses as minor as check fraud. Even serving their time does not protect them from deportation. Nor does being decorated for exceptional service in the military. Joining many others in cities around the US, a group of veterans gathered yesterday to hold vigils calling for an end to deportations.<\/p>\n
GUEST: Hector Barajas, a US Army veteran who served in the 82 Airborne Division, and was deported to Mexico. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a strange fact that in the United States you can serve in the military if you’re an immigrant, yet you cannot vote, or be guaranteed any of the rights that citizens enjoy – such as the right to remain in the US legally. In late September, the Pentagon announced that it would begin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41995,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41990\/revisions\/41995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}