Thread: Mexican American Vets drawn into immigration debate

Apr 24, 7:49 PM EDT

Veterans drawn into immigration debate
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/RON SCHWANE


Marcial Rodriguez, a U.S. Marine who grew up in a Mexican farming village, is offended that the country he went to war for might deport his relatives who are living here illegally.

Three months after the lance corporal returned to Ohio from the fighting in Iraq, the U.S. House adopted a bill that would make Rodriguez's cousin a felon for being one of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.
Rodriguez, 20, said he enlisted in the Marine reserves to repay the debt he felt owed to a country that had given him an education and a home for his family.

"People from many different countries are fighting, not just from Mexico," he said. "We want to participate in this country."

It is unclear how many soldiers find their loyalties similarly divided, but at a time when Pentagon has stepped up recruiting of Hispanics to fill recruiting quotas, experts say a crackdown on illegal immigration would undoubtedly cause resentment in the ranks.

"How do you tell them we're going to deport their parents and grandparents?" asked Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a group that has encouraged Hispanics who do not plan to attend college to join the military. "That's not America."

Hispanics are increasingly joining the military as their numbers have grown, according to a 2004 study on Marine recruitment by CNA Corp., a research firm in Arlington, Va. The study found Hispanics have done exceptionally well in the Marines, with boot-camp attrition rates well below average.
Hispanics accounted for 16.5 percent of Marine recruits last year, up from 13.4 percent in 2002 and 11.7 percent in 1997, the firm said.

Soldiers and veterans have been a popular presence at a wave of pro-immigrant rallies across the country in recent weeks. In Houston, speakers at a rally this month repeatedly pointed to people in uniform on a nearby bridge, and they received roaring applause, said Eliseo Medina, a top official of the Service Employees International Union.

"They stick out like a sore thumb," Medina said. "When (demonstrators) see people in uniform, it gives them tremendous pride and validates that we are contributing to this country."
At a pro-immigration rally April 9 that drew 50,000 people in San Diego, Hispanic veterans from World War II carried signs that read "We Fought in Your Wars," said Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran.

"After serving our country, to see our relatives now criminalized through this legislation is provoking a lot of people," said Mariscal, director of Chicano studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Rodriguez enlisted in 2004 after graduating from high school in Painesville, Ohio. Nine months later, he was combing Iraq for insurgents near the Syrian border. He barely escaped death when three friends of his were killed by a roadside bomb last June.

Rodriguez is now a freshman at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where he is studying international relations. He said he has dreamed since boyhood of joining the CIA. He speaks English and Spanish and is learning French.

His father, Ernesto Rodriguez, crossed illegally into the United States in 1976 after deciding that he would never be able to support a family in Mexico. He had dropped out of school after third grade and had been farming corn in the Mexican state of Guanajuato from age 16. After getting caught by the Border Patrol, he made it on a second try and worked on a chicken farm near Dallas.

The elder Rodriguez, now 47, became a permanent resident under a 1986 law that gave legal status to 2.6 million immigrants. He moved to Ohio to find work and in 1998 got permission to bring his wife and three children this country. Marcial was 13 at the time.

Marcial's cousin Eli Rodriguez illegally crossed the border in 1999 and moved in with Marcial's father. Eli Rodriguez paid a smuggler $1,200 to bring him across the Arizona desert.

"He's like a brother," Marcial Rodriguez said. "He's just working for a better life, nothing more. Mexico has nothing to offer him."

Eli, 24, married a Mexican woman he met in Ohio, rented an apartment and makes $10 an hour as a landscaper. He said he hopes to obtain legal status and join the military.

"I want to join the military, but I can't. This country has given me a lot," he said. "I would like to serve."

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The attitude of the Rodriguez family is wrong in so many ways.
It is legitimate to want to assist members of your famiy who are still living overseas but the way to do that is to help them where they are. Both the process of becoming a legal alien and an American soldier require oaths to uphold laws of the United States the Rodriguezes. The Rodriguezes broke both sets of oaths when they brought in their cousin Eli. They should be made to leave the country for their crimes.

Seeing a Vet at an amnesty rally is just like as seeing a priest
at a devil worshippers mass.

A landscaper would be making twice what Eli is being paid if the immigration laws had been enforced and the amount paid twenty years ago adjusted for inflation.

That's a propoganda piece. I served in the Military and do not remember any Illegals serving with me. I do remember Fillipinos on a program. The military has nothing to do with Illegals. Immigrants and Citizens yes...Illegals, NO!

The only 'hispanic' types I remember were from Puerto Rico. Of all the people I met only one comes to mind from Mexico.

Whether you served with Mexican Americans would have depended on your unit. Instead of merely using forged papers an iIllegal alien would be lkely to serve using someone elses identity.

Yes I agree it is a propaganda piece.

Originally Posted by Richard

Whether you served with Mexican Americans would have depended on your unit. Instead of merely using forged papers an iIllegal alien would be lkely to serve using someone elses identity.

Yes I agree it is a propaganda piece.

Does the person whose identity was assumed get the benefits?? Maybe a GI Bill?

In No way because of his service does it mean that all of his family members get to come to this country Illegally. You can tell that he didnt learn much in the service because the military is based on regulations that you adhere to. You just dont break them when you feel that you have the right to. Myself I served for 10.5 yrs and got out disabled. Because of that i am further down the Food chain then Illegal Aliens are. My thoughts are if i lived next door to him i would turn all of those in his family in that I thought were Illegal. and tell him to his face I did it for my children that are also Legal and loseing thier rights to him and his. Law Breaking Illegal Alien Family Members.

these people have no concept of the rule of law and an oath of allegiance. To defend your country against all enemies, domestic and foreign, includes aliens that illegally enter this country and just because they're related doesn't make them immune to or above the law. These illegals and their supporters are starting so sound like politicians