House Democratic leaders want Republicans to keep DREAMer amendments in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 (NDAA), despite the objections of conservative Republicans who say the move makes no sense when the military is laying off thousands of military personnel.
The House Armed Services Committee already approved an amendment (NDAA) of Democratic Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego’s that would continue to allow non-citizens or DREAMers to serve in the U.S. military and earn their American citizenship in the armed forces. This was done with the help of six Republicans joining all 27 Democrats of the committee.
Virgina Republican David Brat argues in a Daily Signal piece against the amendment saying, “The recruitment is being encouraged at the very same time the Pentagon is laying off tens of thousands of American troops. According to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, the active Army will be cut by more than 80,000 uniformed personnel by the end of fiscal year 2017.”
Gallegos told The Daily Caller at a press conference that the amendment does not place a priority of DREAMers over American citizens who may have lost their job in the military or are about to lose their job in the armed forces.
“Again, this is a sense of Congress. We’re not putting a priority on anything. Lastly, the military still has a tough time integrating people from recruiting to being eligible. And many times they have failure rates up to 70 percent as having people being eligible, which for different reasons—health reasons, criminal records—things of this nature,” he said.
“So any attempt to actually expand the pool of available recruits that are going to be qualified and patriotic enough to serve is good for this country. So I don’t like this idea of pitting one group of Americans against another group of Americans. We’re trying to find the best Americans to defend this country and all this bill is saying is that the available bill may also be DREAMERS, but there are no teeth to this,” Gallegos noted.