This is pretty transparently not a recruitment tactic, but an attempt to get these students to identify their parents as undocumented.
“Yes sir, I’m interested in your offer. Why? Well because my parents are undocumented. Wait, why is ICE here now?”
They will sign up and their parents will be targeted for deportation.
Commenting for some context.
I have some experience with this since I was a recruiter for a couple years (Disclaimer: before trump). I did officer recruiting and had no quota, so I had the freedom to be more honest with people. My first question was always, “Do you want to join the military?” And if the answer was “no” I’d tell them to go do anything else. If the answer was “yes,” I’d try to figure out what they really wanted. Often what they wanted was something they could find elsewhere and I would tell them so and how to get there. Occasionally someone would just be pro-military and I put a lot of energy into explaining that there are no promises, no guarantees, and the government will do what it wants with you whether you like it or not. My goal was to dismiss misconceptions (often generated by media/movies or recruiting ads themselves). This was before this insane trump era and I had fewer reservations if someone truly wanted it AND had the wherewithal to be a decent human about it.
Enlisted recruiters don’t necessarily have the same leeway. They are directly graded on the number of enlistments they get in whatever reporting period. Their promotions often depend on it. They are also given materials and information to use. The message above looks like a mixture of someone trying to meet their enlistment quota through outreach and a certain well-intentioned blindness that comes from years of indoctrination to trust the system. I’d be hesitant to say this recruiter is personally trying to round up immigrants, although there is always a chance. It seems more likely that this either came from higher in the organization, like Pentagon level directive (arguably more concerning), or comes from short-sighted intention to help without considering or being aware of the broader dangers so they’re trying to disseminate info about programs that could have been helpful in the past without understanding how they can also be weaponized.
That being said! Intention doesn’t matter. This is a program that can be weaponized and it should be ridiculed as such.
PSA: Everyone should always be highly skeptical when dealing with recruiters, now more than ever, especially since they are graded on number of enlistments. If anyone you know is considering an enlistment tell them that recruiters are not there to help you get what you want, they’re there to make numbers. The incentive structure for them is not in anyone else’s best interest. I’ve found this argument to be effective where more ideological arguments may not land or may further entrench.
The message above looks like a mixture of someone trying to meet their enlistment quota through outreach and a certain well-intentioned blindness that comes from years of indoctrination to trust the system. I’d be hesitant to say this recruiter is personally trying to round up immigrants, although there is always a chance.
This was my read as well. That E-6 probably doesn’t care about immigration and the like; he just wants to dangle whatever carrot he can to get bodies.
It’s scummy, but it’s not meant to be as malicious as it comes off.
That being said! Intention doesn’t matter. This is a program that can be weaponized and it should be ridiculed as such.
100%.
These ghouls will try every trick in the book to get people to sign up. They’ve always done that. They have no shame at all. This might be a new low, even for them.
I’d kind of be surprised if this was real, especially with that name.
That being said, recruiters are all pieces of shit, because if they’re not then they’re going to get taken off recruiter duty which is the cushiest posting in a lot of branches. So they do what they have to do to make their recruitment quotas.
So it’s possible some idiot really tried this, but no one should believe anything a recruiter says.
I once had a recruiter try to recruiter me while I was on the job as a cashier. Just checking out his stuff and he just says “do you like working here”.
I said “yeah it’s fine”. Then he began questioning me on if i thought this was a good career path or where I wanted to go in life etc. I told him I was in college. Then this man’s eyes just lit up and he thought he had me. He said “and who’s paying for that?”
He was so very disappointed when I told him the government was paying for it. I explained I recieved a decent Pell grant that covered all my school costs. He looked immediately defeated. The second he knew I want struggling for money or deep in debt he knew he didn’t have a chance and gave up.
Pretty disturbing how excited he got when he thought I was in crippling debt. I guess they’re trained to exploit desperation. I’m also still annoyed he did this to me on the job where I couldn’t tell him to leave me the hell alone
There seems to be a fella by that name in the Minnesota National Guard, but that doesn’t mean it’s real.
I’d kind of be surprised if this was real, especially with that name.
Pulling the ladder up behind you is not at all rare.
Not even that, just too on the nose.
But a lot of people do join up for citizenship, the shitty part is it gets slow-walked so people end up needing to re-enlist at least once before they can gain citizenship.
It’s one of these weird quirks of today, like, if trump ever does deploy the military to do what ICE is doing, it’s going to be non-citizens detaining US citizens…
I served with people whose only citizenship was Nigeria, Ghana, and a lot of the Caribbean countries, but I think they’re pretty lax on what countries can join. A guy in my boot camp was a Russian ex-cop who was in his late 30s and barely spoke English, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even live in the US before boot camp.
I was curious and looked it up, right now 40k US military members are not citizens:
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48163
So about 2% of the US military, not huge, but not zero either.
Isn’t there some thing where you get citizenship after serving in military?
Same source says 110k non-citizen veterans, so not all get it.
Like I said, the process often takes longer than a single four year enlistment. They may have legal right to stay here, but not full citizen. And would just rather get out and become a citizen another way.
The military kind of sucks bro…
Ya I know. I just think it’s a way to get immigrants, especially brown ones, to sign up. I also think it’s a large reason why there’s a lot of immigrants being let in America lately, as American citizens don’t want to go to regime change warts for corporations anymore, and are tired of watching the ones that do, die from suicide.
It’s just used to trick children, to make them seem more trustworthy. I can almost guarantee you it’s not their real name. It’s like the customer service line you call, get someone with a thick accent named “John”
no consequences will follow from this shit, while they call unarmed women trying to get away “terrorist” and blame her murder on her spouse
textbook gang behavior.
Another thing they have in common with Nazi Germany. You basically had to have at least one family member in a Nazi organisation or face reprisals.
It sure would be awful if these teenagers held a vendetta regarding this threat and took up this offer only to shoot their superior officers as soon as they were provided a firearm
This might not even be from the national guard. It might be directly from ICE posting as NG.
This is the DARE program all over
