Thread: Mexican's Own Discouraged From Immig Or joining US Armed Svc

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impre ... abla=miami

tells students not to enlist in army

Wire services
April 20, 2005

The father of a Mexican-born U.S. Marine slain in Iraq came back to his native Mexico on Tuesday to convince young Mexicans not to immigrate to the United States or allow themselves to be recruited into the U.S. armed services.

Fears abound here that Mexican youths may see service as a fast-track to citizenship, although the U.S. military does not recruit in Mexico. A minor violation of that recruitment rule occurred in 2003, when a U.S. Army recruiter went to the border city of Tijuana looking for two youths he had first contacted in the United States.

"People should stay here, rather than pursue the misnamed American dream," said Fernando Suárez del Solar of San Diego, Calif., who has traveled across the United States and visited Iraq during his anti-war campaign.

His son, Lance Cpl. Jesús Suárez del Solar, died in a cluster bomb explosion in 2003. The 20year-old Solar joined the military two years earlier after recruiters told him enlisting would help him become a civilian police officer, his father said.

"Anybody who goes there risks being chased by vigilantes, or recruited into the army," Suárez de Solar said. "I want to talk to young people ... and tell them they should stay here and work for Mexico."

Suárez de Solar noted that the U.S. armed forces have seen shortfalls in their recruiting goals. "They (recruiters) are desperate, and that poses a risk for the Latino community and Mexicans on the border," he said.

"It's not fair for them to use our sons and daughters in their unjust war," he said.

Suárez del Solar was scheduled to speak later Tuesday to political science students at the Mexico City campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the country's top public college.

While such students are unlikely to emigrate, Suárez del Solar said he would like to reach a wider audience of Mexican young people with the message of his Guerrero Azteca Project, named in his son's honor.

"Mexico is paying a very high price in blood for this illegal and immoral war," said Suárez del Solar, who estimated that 202 soldiers of Hispanic origin have died in Iraq, 89 of them Mexicans who were legal residents in the United States.

He called them and other Mexican immigrant soldiers serving in the U.S. armed forces "the soldiers without a country" because many are not U.S. citizens and lose their Mexican citizenship by virtue of serving in a foreign army.

Non-citizen soldiers from countries including Mexico, the Philippines, Nigeria and Germany are legal immigrants who the military has long let serve as everything from cooks to front line soldiers, though not generally as officers.

The annual number of noncitizen enlistees has fallen nearly 20 percent from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004, from 11,829 to 9,477 recruits, according to military data.

Much of the decline came last year alone and despite new rules that offer expedited citizenship for non-citizens soldiers.

Music to my ears! I hope he gets on nationwide television several times a day. I hope he discourages all of them from coming here.

RR

I may not articulate this properly but:

If they don't want to SERVE THE USA along with our American troops, STAY AWAY--stay the hell out!

We have some of the finest troops ever, both men and women, who deserve to have only the best watching their backs. Our troops can't even depend on the government to "protect" them from the courts and quite a few have been sacrificial lambs. {yes, there's always a few bad apples in any group}

However, there are many fine Soldiers that are not American citizens that are serving and quite a few have given their lives to protect their buddies.

This crap only serves to make it more difficult when our people come back home and I don't like it one darned bit. We have enough Americans hating our troops.

{had to vent}