Another Reason Why Bush Wants Immigrants

[Pissed Off Cabbie]

Latinos enlisting in record numbers<br>Despite opposition to the Iraq war, pride motivates many to sign up for military duty<br><br>Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer<br><br>Monday, May 15, 2006<br> <br>Lance Cpl. Victor Gonzalez died in Ramadi, Iraq. Amalia Avila opposes the Iraq war, but she supported her ... Army Sgt. Robert Marin distributes recruiting material at... Orlando Mayorga, 24, is a new recruit still awaiting depl... More...<br><br> <br><br>Amalia Avila never supported the war. But after her first son, Victor Gonzalez, told her he wanted to join the Marines, she felt a mixture of fear, concern and, finally, pride.<br><br>"This war makes no sense to me," Avila said last week in her Watsonville home. "I'd ask him why he wanted to go, and he'd just say his brothers needed his help. ... But when Victor did get into the Marines, when that day came, I was so proud of him."<br><br>Avila paused to allow her tears. "It was a beautiful day."<br><br>It was also one of the last days Avila saw her son. Gonzalez, 19, who was born in Salinas shortly after Avila arrived in the United States from Mexico, served a little more than a month in Anbar province before he was killed by a roadside mortar explosion in October 2003.<br><br>The discord between Avila's unsettled feelings toward the war and her son's sacrifice reflects a growing paradox within the Latino community. A majority of Latinos believe the troops should come home as soon as possible, according to Pew Hispanic Center surveys, yet enlistment of Latinos has steadily risen in the past decade.<br><br>According to the Department of Defense, in 2004, the most recent year of confirmed data, Latinos made up 13 percent of new recruits. This is an all-time high, nearly twice the percentage of 10 years earlier.<br><br>Latinos' presence in the military still does not match their 17 percent share of the overall population ages 18 to 24. And African Americans continue to be overrepresented in the military, making up about 18 percent of active duty personnel but only 13 percent of the U.S. population. Nonetheless, the absolute number of Latinos entering the armed forces continues to grow.<br><br>"The dichotomy is this," said Steven Ybarra, a member of the nonprofit political advocacy group Latinos for America, "on the one hand, our children view serving in the military as showing they are part of this community; while on the other, their grandparents and parents have seen this all before.<br><br>"But within the Latino family unit," Ybarra added, "maybe more than others, there's a value system where the parents will look at their son and say, 'Hijo, you're a man now. You're going to do what you're going to do, and I will respect that' -- even if it means going to war."<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/15/MNGE4IRVTN1.DTL">sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...IRVTN1.DTL</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>

[NavnDansk]

Almost two years ago, on a veterans site, I read about the fact that many immigrants, esp. Hispanics signed up because they were promised citizenship by the military if they survived their tour. But the ones who did were given the run-around and arbitrary timelimits and the site said that the only way these immigrants get citizenship is if they die.<br><br>Shortly after I read this, AOL front page had a story of Bush giving citizenship papers to ONE soldier. He had a Hispanic surname and was very pale and delicate looking and in a wheelchair with a plaid cover over the remnants of his legs and his proud family around him.<br><br>It was like, after Cher called C-SPAN to talk about the terrible loss of limbs in the soldiers she visited when she was in Washington DC and asking why Bush had not visited any of the wounded and maimed soldiers in Walter Reed (which has now been closed and Bethesda Naval Hospital will not be able to treat all of the wounded soldiers adequately). <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START >: --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/mad.gif ALT=">:"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br> After this phone call by Cher who tried to be anonomous but the C-SPAN host recognized her voice and knew she was in DC for her tour, is when Bush made ONE brief trip to Walter Reed. I do not think he has attended any of the soldiers funerals though Kennedy did and the Washington Post writer spoke of how Kennedy could barely stop himself from crying when taps were played for other soldiers than the one whose funeral Kennedy was attending.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[johnny nemo]

...was how the Union got Irish immigrants to fight in the Civil War, often sigining them up right off the boat.<br><br>It's nice to see that the military's sticking with enlistment programs that work, he said sarcastically. <p></p><i></i>

[dbeach]

bush will use the illegal immigrant issue as he uses any controversial topic to exploit the lower classes and to further divide an already divide electorate.<br><br>bush don't give a hoot about anybody but himself and his rich croonies<br><br>now he will deploy the NG i.e. the Military to the borders cuz he is too cheap to hire more border guards and to CONditon the masses to accept the use of the Military in EVERY situation which is a HUGH precedent and a worse abuse of the executive <p></p><i></i>