It’s not easy to get a green card in America, and harder still to become a citizen. However, under a new recruitment program for the armed forces, if you’ve been in the US for 2 years and have the skills the military needs, you can get your citizenship in as little as six months from the day you begin service. 
While in the past recruitment was open to green card holders (with 8,000 a year signing up for the military) this is the first time recruitment has been opened to temporary immigrants.
The program targets two groups: medical professionals and those with language expertise including speakers of “Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Igbo (a tongue spoken in Nigeria), Kurdish, Nepalese, Pashto, Russian and Tamil. [link]” In other words, this is a program tailor made for desis (although not exclusively so)
The only catch is that you have to serve out your time in the military honorably, or you might lose your citizenship (!) even if you received it in the first six months of service:
Language experts will have to serve four years of active duty, and health care professionals will serve three years of active duty or six years in the Reserves. If the immigrants do not complete their service honorably, they could lose their citizenship. [link]
What made the US military realize their sudden love for brownz? They’re not getting the right kinds of recruits for service in Afghanistan:
Recruiters’ work became easier in the last few months as unemployment soared and more Americans sought to join the military. But the Pentagon, facing a new deployment of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, still has difficulties in attracting doctors, specialized nurses and language experts. [link]
(Can somebody explain why the military thinks it will need Igbo and Tamil speakers in Afghanistan? I’m a bit puzzled by the mix of languages that they’re trying to pick up.)
Part of this is the military looking for specific skills, but part of it is a desire to raise the quality of recruits. Right now almost 1 in 5 has a waiver for a past criminal record or a health problem. A similar number don’t even have a high school diploma. Recent immigrants are expected to have high skills, and cannot have a criminal past:
Military figures show that only 82 percent of about 80,000 Army recruits last year had high school diplomas. According to new figures, the Army provided waivers to 18 percent of active-duty recruits in the final four months of last year, allowing them to enlist despite medical conditions or criminal records. [link]
While this is just a trial run, officials are looking at temporary immigrants as a source of up to 14,000 volunteers or 17% of army recruits each year!
The big challenge this program faces is political pressure from nativists who would rather have American-born recruits with a criminal past and no high school diploma than higher skilled and more closely vetted recent immigrants:
A preliminary Pentagon announcement of the program last year drew a stream of angry comments from officers and veterans on Military.com, a Web site they frequent… Commenters who vented their suspicions of the program on Military.com said it could be used by terrorists to penetrate the armed forces. [link]
It’s also possible that this security suspicion is just a fig leaf for naked protectionism, of the old guard wanting to keep certain jobs for Americans (that is citizens and green card holders). We’ll see which proves stronger – market forces or politics, in the coming years.
Related posts: Major Bhutani, Neil Prakash in ‘Wired’ (updated)
Tamils not for Afghanistan. Future geo-politcal operations in Indian Ocean region, Sri-Lankan neighbourhood, South-East Asian countries (where there are lot of Tamil speaking folks) to counter the China’s string of pearls. Why do you think US-India are cozying up with each other ?
I agree with Marie… you need Hindi and Tamil to communicate in most of South Asian coutries
this is good news for many of my nepali friends with no greencard. life here is so much more tough for them and they’ll have more options now.
1 · Marie said
I doubt it. I think it might be because there may be a lot of tamil contractors in Afghanistan for UN supplies.
And as far as Igbo – Nigeria’s got the oil in Africa. It’s called diversifying your portfolio 🙂 I think this is a smart move. Not only is the military opening themselves up to a new group of potential recruits, but they’re going to get people who do have a global perspective on the world (hard to not have if you’ve lived in another country).
I’m surprised Farsi / Persian is not on the list.
Igbo is obvious for the oil as the U.S. will be shifting to Africa and South America to obtain a higher percentage of oil. While there have been a few hostile situations for multi-national oil companies in Nigeria, the threat will be lessened when the U.S. military is involved in securing the oil.
There are many engineering grants for U.S. students to study in Brazil and learn Brazilian Portuguese. Brazil has a lot of untapped oil. The U.S. will use the Portuguese for Africa as well. We will get more oil Angola than Nigeria as there is a large amount of untapped oil there as well. Angola’s official language is Portuguese.
The U.S. has been working on setting up bases / command centers in Africa to have bigger presence in the region. With China, India, and Middle Eastern companies investing, the U.S. wants part of the Africa pie now too. These other countries investing in Africa are a threat to the U.S.
Maybe they are going to take the business approach but this is still about empire and oil.
History is repeating itself?
Not completely unfounded. Probably because of bad-apples from the days of US funding of anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan – e.g. Ali Mohamed
They might as well have the foreign legion in the US military.
8 · Samir said
Isn’t this what the Foreign Service is for?
And what about the NSA or Homeland Security ?
Maybe they already have enough there and are just looking to get the idiot to non idiot / non criminal ratio better in the military. If you have more education are you more likely to have better reasoning skills? I guess you might be able to reason with someone in their language before shooting them but if you are ordered to shoot I guess you don’t have a choice… if you are in the military you are not really allowed to reason you have to follow orders…
Raj & Samir you have hit the nail on the head. This “diversity” recruitment is actually not very different from a big controversy brewing in academic circles (social science,anthropology) where the DOD is encroaching and exploiting academic studies for its broader war on terror purposes – Minerva grants -Anthropology Association Urges Government to Tread Cautiously With ‘Minerva’ Project -DOD Funds New Views on Conflict With Its First Minerva Grants (good article but subscription required)
This is especially relevant for any immigrant community who will have to make the hard choice on many levels.
The military is just asking for Hindi and Tamil because they knows desis are not of the gay.
10 · Marie said
If you mean the choice to join the military as a “hard choice,” I guess its along the lines of pay to play. I get that its hard but if you don’t want to join the military you could just wait the decade or so to get the citizenship. In some people’s minds maybe they are thinking that if someone wants to become a citizen they shouldn’t have a problem serving in the military.
I didn’t know so much about the Minerva grants, but I do know that many of the grants / scholarships from the U.S. govt. to study any language are in some way tied to the NSA, HS, or DOD. These often require a government service commitment and usually the service is in the NSA or DOD.
As for engineering there are $10,000 scholarships for engineering students if they agree to DoD contracts in the summers and after graduation.
Some of the highest paying engineering internships are with defense contractors.
I understand that this is the idea of “pay to play.”
If the U.S. government was more aggressive (investment, better language acquisition programs, making it mandatory to learn to fluency) with its approach to language learning for people before university then maybe we would not be facing the same problems that we are today. The same goes for investment in science and technology studies.
If we had more brains involved in the sciences and technology fields as well as more people that were fluent in multiple languages maybe we would be able to gather better intelligence to avoid killing people in the first place. We would be able to better negotiate as well.
Instead we are trying to play catch up. We have more security problems now because of our arrogance and ignorance. So the grants for learning languages and pressing for technology and science study are wrapped up with DoD and military. Since we are falling behind in technology we have to maintain our superiority by military means.
There should be more U.S. govt grants for these for science, technology, and language acquisition, that have nothing to do with military or DoD. If the general population is better educated it spread throughout the country. The DoD and military will be able to find people in the general population that have the skills they need without holding people to contracts for service that they might be uneasy about signing up for in the first place.
Then again if this was the case and the type of thinking going on we probably would be in the situation we are today.
*wouldn’t
11 · Rahul said
unless they are of the entertainment business. 🙂
Clearly the military has found evidence that Lemuria was bigger than anyone imagined, except for the Panagal Park pitamahas and the Thiruvanmiyur thathas who asserted the truth about Tamil origins of the world to anyone who cared to listen. This is a typical military coverup, like claiming that the Roswell crash object was a flying “saucer” and other items of Western crockery when it was obviously a Madras-made reel spun so vigorously that it flew all the way to New Mexico.
unless they are of the entertainment business. 🙂
Hahaha! Casual homophobia is so funny!
What? I’m being too intolerant towards idiocy? oh don’t be so serious – it’s just a joke. I have friends who are idiots
There is no center with regard to the Minerva projects. The articles that detail Def. Sec. Gates’s programs all point out a populist conservative idea being spread that universities are filled with U.S. hating socialist professors. His idea is to fund the universities with millions but tied to the DoD so that people will know that universities are friendly to the U.S. and the government’s agendas.
Talk about classicism, they are just swinging it the other way. Universities and the people in them are either with the government or against it. If the majority of grants for languages and other studies are not tied to security and defense, then they are trying to make the public believe that the universities are just filled with communists and socialists against the U.S. in every way.
It may seem ridiculous to believe that a big percentage of the U.S. has a negative view about universities, especially when a majority of Sepia readers are university educated or know people that are. If you are part of the scared / living in fear masses you likely don’t think the same. If you are on the outside you just may have been frightened into thinking that the thinking man / woman is of the weird and should be held in suspicion.
16 · Dr Amonymous said
It wasn’t casual homophobia. It was an allusion to the Russell Peters’ joke about his dad watching the Gay Pride parade. I believe the original comment was about the same joke.
And I do have friends who are gay that think the particular Russell Peters’ joke is very funny as it is pointing out his dad’s homophobia.
paraphrased… dad “do you know them … RP no why, because they are of the gay and you are of the entertainment business” DAD”There should not be gay Indians.” RP “actually gay indians would be great for india as we already have a population problem. “
I really find it hard to believe that Russell Peters is homophobic.
11 · Rahul said
Rahul did you know that you were being homophobic or were you also referencing the RP joke / the don’t ask don’t tell hypocritical policy of the U.S. military?
I can attest that I am not casually homophobic.
19 · Raj said
What? The military has a don’t ask, don’t tell policy? Did you say that the joke that desis are not gay is a hoary one, referenced at least as early as Bend it like Beckham, and used by Russell Peters too? I am sorry, I’ve been living under a rock the past 20 years, coming out only to occasionally befriend Dr. A, so I haven’t been aware of these cultural nuggets.
Rahul,
So you are saying you just stumbled upon this Sep – i – a blog thing and don’t even know what Sepia Mutiny is in reference to? Let me guess… you think all the posts about M.I.A. are jokes about the military and soldiers missing in action. You don’t know who Russell Peters is either and why does a white guy think he has the right to make jokes about Indians that happen to be gay anyway.
I forgive you Rahul. But next time somebody’s gonna get a hurt real bad. For those of you just stopping by the SM has nothing to do (usually) with S&M and neither does that joke. Its another one by Russell Peters.
When John Kerry sort-of said the same thing, it was a potential presidential run ender. A real pity for the Republicans.
23 · Rahul said
How dare you or anyone especially an ex-presidential candidate point out that there is a problem with our country.
That’s not being patriotic. You have to defend ignorance with arrogance. You’re not making things better by trying to make things better.
They’re just casting about for the next army captain and super stars.
25 · Rahul said
I particularly like the way you have cherry picked for hindi.
So the American college graduates are still able to find jobs?
Hindi: They want Urdu speakers as it is a common second language for the Taliban, especially the ones hailing from NWFP. Easier to meet your numbers training Hindi speakers in the Urdu script & idiom than it is to recruit native Urdu speakers
Tamil: No idea unless the US intends to become a peace broker in Sri Lanka. I am Tamil and can assure you that we have not been an influential minority anywhere in Southeast Asia (e.g. Malaysia, Burma, Thailand) since the 1950s so it is hard to see how we would help counter the Chinese.
Why don’t you Amerikans just headhunt the gurkhas from the Brits. Speak Hindi & hard as nails & decades of loyal service to the previous hegemonic power what more do you want ?
25 · Rahul said
I take your superstars and raise you some guts.
The US military conducts joint training with several countries around the world. This can be for operational reasons such as humanitarian aid, anti-piracy operations, peace keeping, communication building exercises, placing the right type of personnel as liaisons to different organizations/programs, to actual soft/kinetic operations. It isn’t all about simply fighting or combat. If war is a politics by other means then a nation’s military is another tool (war or peace) in a country’s foreign relations kit (diplomatic, political, socio-economic being other ones).
Army Special Forces, psyops, engineering folks, military intelligence, translators, civil affairs, military technology trade/training, medics etc. all would make use of foreign language training depending on the situation.
For the above mentioned reasons, as war may be on Afghan soil, but resources for war means the US military still has to interact with everyone involved in the Afghan sphere and its associated logistical footprint. There are lots of African contractor security personnel (from what I’ve heard) running front door security to US/NATO locations. Contractors building roads and infrastructure come from various backgrounds, but knowledge passed on from them is key in maintaining a wide information net. Medical folks are positive force multipliers in an insurgency. When you treat folks for disease/injury, they are willing to pony up information. Tamil, Igbo, and some of the other languages are related to locales that have insurgencies (or potential of one). While the world bashes away at the US govt., nations are lining up for joint training exercises as the military (not the US government) has made some significant leaps in tactics. Bob Woodward mentioned he was privy to a new program, but can’t release information on it.
I haven’t read any specific literature on this, so take my opinion for what its worth…
as a side note – here’s a color coded map for military recruitment in the greater toronto area. on the surface doesnt seem to be that the usual ‘immgirant’ neighborhoods are showing a blip in recruitment. one area in the neighborhood of sunnybrook park seems remarkable since it is upscale. another area in oshawa is interesting since it is home to the auto industry [GM].
Someone on Daily Kos diaried on this too. The nativism among the comments is kind of “funny uh-oh.”
Also. I learned today that all furriners are security risks and not to be trusted. Who knew?
No Malayalees Left Behind?
31 · GujuDude said
Gujudude, thank you, genuinely. I was hoping for an alternative comment in the comments. I won’t go through it all. But it is good to hear official reasons for such things.
Such as insurgents in Nigeria.
I think that’s what they called the people that took over the oil refinery because their government contracted with companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and allowed Shell to clear land and people by any means necessary to have access to oil. The same companies that pollute the land and water in Nigeria and say that if the people have a problem with it that they should take it to their corrupt government and try to get it solved.
The U.S. will definitely need to be there to fight the insurgents to help secure the oil for the multi-nationals.
Now wait for it Dr. Amonymous…
Dr. that joke is not Kat Williams approving of the killing of civilians in Iraq. It was Kat Williams talking about how the U.S. government is like a pimp making up words that no one understands. That if the media uses the word ‘insurgent’ instead of 100 people were killed, that most Americans will not take a second to think about it because we don’t know any ‘insurgents.’
I’m not making any official reason, just providing my opinion based on what I understand. Nor did I say the guys fighting against oil companies are the “insurgents”. Also, you’re assuming in the global salafist movement, there aren’t any Nigerians involved at some level (support, information, money.). Whatever the cause for conflict, it isn’t a bad thing to have people who speak the language at least understand and decipher what’s going on – counter insurgency, peace keeping, humanitarian aid, civil efforts, health (polio virus issues), training local police to strengthen civil institutions, etc.
GujuDude – if they’re worried about Salafist Nigerians, they’d ask for Hausa speakers. The north, which is where most of the Muslims are from (and where they speak Hausa) has no oil. The oil is in areas with many Igbos, most of whom are Christians.
I agree that it’s not a bad idea for the US military to have broader language competence than they do now. That said, the fact that they’re putting such high priority on these languages in particular (express ticket to citizenship in record time!) is noteworthy.
I don’t think they need these languages for joint military exercises or for dealing with contractors, in both cases business is done in English (with the contractors they can specify it). I think it’s being driven by some form of internal threat assessment, which means they think there might be conflicts involving Hindi, Tamil, Pashtu and Nepali speakers in the future. Food for thought.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the US Armed Forces does a lot of humanitarian work, especially in the form of disaster relief and aid distribution. So it can never hurt to have some language expertise. I think especially now that Blackwater has ended up getting so much bad press they have been trying to build up some baseline expertise internally in some areas that they used to just contract out.
Yoga Fire#40 good point.
Ever since the Iraq war started in 2003 language training has been considered to be important to national security. Thats why Center for Study of Advanced Language (CASL) at UMD was established by DoD. A sampling of the projects at CASL probably will give you an idea as to why the DoD deems it important.
So you think that they anticipate needing to do a lot of disaster relief in Hindi, Tamil and Nepali speaking regions in the near future? Remember that these recruits are coming for a 4 year window, and they’re putting a very high priority on getting expertise in these languages rather than others.
You’re right that they want to build up their language expertise, but they can always hire civilian contractors. To offer people who don’t even have green cards full citizenship in less than a year in a very powerful inducement, more powerful than any they have ever offered before. I don’t think they’d dangle that sort of carrot casually.
Well Pashto relates to Afghanistan region; Nepali relates to Tibet region ; Tamil relates to Sri-Lankan and South-East Asian region (which has some significant terrorist activities especially). All the above regions are or close to potential “conflict” zones.
Ennis,
I don’t disagree with any of this, without specific knowledge though, it’s hard to tell what sphere of influence the DoD is looking to fill these positions in. This is why I provided the broad statements. It’s obviously about networking and communicating, only time will tell what mission requirements are driving the recruitment.
Just as a note, if DoD is looking to gain more traction in the Christian areas of Nigeria in order to influence the Islamist areas, one step would be to get folks with language competancy in the locale of their hosts to develop training programs.
Recently, the DoD formed AFRICOM…
http://www.africom.mil/AboutAFRICOM.asp
Pashto, Arabic and Kurdish are easy, you’re right. Russian and Chinese are self-explanatory. Igbo is for oil, they’re not asking for Hausa or Yoruba. And Hindi may be because it’s easier to get Hindi speakers than Urdu speakers, and they’re clearly concerned about Pakistan.
But Tamil and Nepali are more perplexing. The US military hasn’t shown much interest in either conflict before, so this is noteworthy.
Tamil and Nepali I could easily see as a need to handle a potential refugee crisis. Neither Nepal nor Sri Lanka are the most stable places right now. Igbo likewise. Many of the Indians throughout Southeast Asia are Tamil speaking too. So in terms of balancing out factions and building favorable ties with the civil society there it could be invaluable (but I imagine most of that needs to be done by the State Dept.) I am curious about what the makeup of the Desi presence in Africa is. I know there are a lot of Gujurati speakers. Are there Tamil speakers too though?
It is a huge carrot and I do wonder why they feel the need to bring it out now, but I think it could just be that they are finally acknowledging South Asia as being strategically consequential. Just trying to build ties there in an attempt to counterbalance China would be a big enough motivation by itself. Especially with Nepal.
To be candid, Hindi speakers are more likely to pass a security check. Especially foreign Hindi speakers. I don’t know what level security clearance they would need but I know the State Department’s clearance needs you to list every place you have lived over the past 10 years (or maybe it was 5?). If you come from Pakistan what is the likelihood that you could go ten years without having to do business, no matter how innocuous, with someone who has ties to an anti-American group? We learned from the Sonal Shah debacle that it is hard to do any work in the Desh without shaking hands with someone dirty. I expect that they will watch everyone recruited under this rule like a hawk.
America has been involved with Tibet (albeit covertly) from the early days of cold-war. Nepal borders Tibet and also has problem of Maoism. So Nepali is understable. As GujuDude mentions Tamil maybe for more networking and communicating in the South-East Asia and the Indian ocean region.
Or maybe to catch the Tamil Tiger chief in SE-Asia 😉
9 · Raj said