They Say History Doesn't Repeat; It Rhymes

Military to allow undocumented immigrants to serve

A small number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. will have an opportunity to join the military for the first time in decades under a new Department of Defense policy unveiled Thursday.

The new rules will expand an existing program allowing recruiters to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training. . .

The new Pentagon policy may be the first phase of a broader government-wide effort to ease pressure on immigrants and create new paths to citizenship. President Barack Obama, frustrated with the failure of Congress to pass any substantial immigration reform, has vowed to aggressively use his presidential authority to change the way immigration policies are carried out.

The Pentagon program is capped at 1,500 recruits per year. Officials say it's unclear how many of those might be unlawful DACA status immigrants as opposed to others who are also eligible for military service under MAVNI, including those with legal, nonpermanent visas such as students or tourists.

This at a time when the US military is being pared down, and millions of US citizens are preemptively barred from the military due to criminal records (and yes, it is criminal to be an illegal alien).  I know they say that they're just hiring illegals with rare foreign language skills (which rules out most Hispanics, but might include many Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants.  However, that's this year. The unfortunate tendency is for government programs to grow, and become less restrictive. Pretty soon we'll have recruiters in Tijuana, and Juarez signing up kids who look 16 and say their 18 for three hots and a cot.

And the opening couplet of this poem?  In 376 AD, a Visigoth leader, Fritigern appealed to the Roman authorities to let them into the empire south of the Danube, to escape the ravening Huns.  Emperor Valens agreed, thinking them "a splendid recruiting ground for his army."

In 410 AD the Visigoth army under Alaric I sacked Rome, the first of several sackings of the ancient city to come at the hands of barbarians willingly let through the border, and which ultimately led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.