Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, said in a 2014 radio interview that he does not think undocumented immigrants should serve in the military, and that immigrants in the military in general are more likely to be spies.
“I just think in terms of who’s going to be most likely to be a spy: somebody from Cullman, Alabama, or somebody from Kenya?” Sessions asked, appearing on the conservative Lars Larson show in April 2014.
He explained: “We’re going in the wrong direction in a lot of ways, our head isn’t thinking clearly, at a time when this country needs a good military, last thing we need to be doing is turning out of our military of people who served and bringing in people who are illegally in the country,” Sessions said.
Sessions, currently serving as a senator from Alabama, has been a vocal opponent of most immigration measures, and has often said that immigrants take jobs away from Americans.
He argued: “We don’t have a difficulty getting American citizens to fill our military slots. That is unbelievable that in a time of high unemployment and we get a lot of calls — ‘Help my son get in the military. He’s been turned down, can he get in?’ So I just think this is not the right thing to do right now,” he said.
Sessions was specifically taking issue with a bill that would have made certain undocumented immigrants eligible for military service and citizenship. The legislation failed, but the Pentagon later that year began allowing a very limited number of undocumented immigrants to serve anyhow.
In addition, an untold number of undocumented immigrants have served in the military over the years either by accident, with false documentation, or due to deceptive practices by recruiters.
The U.S. has a long record of immigrants serving in the military, and the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigrants who served in the U.S. military during periods of conflict to apply for naturalization. The U.S. has been in one of those periods since September 11, 2001. Still, some veterans who do not follow through with their service-earned naturalization end up being deported.
“Non-citizen service members offer several benefits to the military,” a military publication explained in 2012. “They are more diverse linguistically and culturally than citizen recruits, which is particularly valuable as the U.S faces the challenges of the Global War on Terrorism.”
Sessions shared an anecdote about Edwin Kigathi Gitau, a man from Kenya who served in the Navy and was arrested in Alabama in 2014 on a charge of extortion. He was charged with threatening a local bank president, asking for $50,000 to protect his family, but was found not guilty the following year.
“How did he get in the Navy?” Sessions asked. “I’m wondering: could you get good test scores from his high school? Could you get a good grade point average from Kenya or wherever?”
Sessions is at odds with Trump on the matter, who said at NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum in September that he is not opposed to allowing undocumented veterans to legally stay in the U.S.: “I think that when you serve in the armed forces, that’s a special situation, and I could see myself working that out. Absolutely,” he said.
If the worst happens and Sessions is confirmed as AG, will he start by officially calling all cops slave catchers? Trump thinks it’s okay to racially insult reporters at press conferences. Does this mean that Sessions will do the same at all DOJ meetings?
I’m just guessing here, but my bet is Cullman, Alabama. Does Kenya have spies?
>>> The U.S. has a long record of immigrants serving in the military, and the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigrants who served in the U.S. military during periods of conflict to apply for naturalization.<<<
The #1 difference between a free man and a slave is the right to keep and bear arms.
Dred Scott vs Sandford, 1857
Naomi, you seem to grossly conflate ‘undocumented immigrant’ with ‘documented immigrant.’ Your title is either misleading, or not supported by your explanation.
Disallowing ‘documented immigrants’ into the military is absurd and wrong.
Disallowing ‘UNdocumented immigrants’ into the military is completely practical and sensible.
As an American citizen I’m wracking my brain and I’m having a hell of a time trying to find a single thing I or ANY other American that I personally know have in common with this yokel.
Jeff, you’re from a state that openly rebelled against our country, and whose citizens still harbor warm, fuzzy feelings about the Confederacy.
So to make it clear, Jeff, the last person ANYONE needs, telling them who is American or not, is a God damned cretin like you who has treason and anti-Americanism in their DNA.
So with all due respect, get f#%ked and stay f#$cked.
So Sessions isn’t an asshole because of his bigoted views, it’s because he’s from a southern state? Way to stereotype, segregate and insult large swaths of people you know nothing about.
It seems like you’re the real asshole.
“it’s because he’s from a southern state?”
It’s because he’s from a state which openly rebelled against my country.
F#%K the Confederacy and ANY subhuman cretin who still supports that nonsense.
Cucks like you will be first. Pull your fat head outta your anus.the world is going populist/nationalist..Putin.Trump.Modi in India. Erdogan in Turkey.Assad in Syria . Xi in China .Abe in Japan. Netanyahu in Israel. Face it the Marxist cucking that produced you is in absolute decline. The nation and its people before global Marxism.
Hey retard, a cuck is a conservative who is squeemish and easily cowed.
I am neither conservative nor easily cowed.
You halfwits may actually want to understand that word before using it.
Also, this nation will be majority Latino in about 30 years, so yes, I am also on board with the entire cultural nationalist thing.
¡Dios bendiga America, Cabron!
Puto. Cuck. Lol . You got turned in jail by some Latino. You still fondly recall looking down at your orange jumpsuit around your ankles. Gringo maricon communista
Let me guess. Your abuelita just recently dragged your raggedy ass out of some Central America war zone where the local militias used you as a cum dumpster on a nightly basis, right.
AYE, PAUVRE SI!!!!
What is it with you all saying cuck? Why is it so easy to get people to repeat the same ideas?
Our Democracy is on a decline. The enemy is not who you think it is. This fake idea that Marxism has infiltrated is just propaganda from the right. You all repeat it in unison like a broken record. Most of it is damn near verbatim, which leads me to believe it’s from one source.
They know many of you will look at the Soros shiny object as they continue to launder money using the military, create more war due to 60 years of meddling by Neocons, Likud, the GCC and NATO, privatize everything using tax money to support their theft and create more bubbles to further centralize the control of money. And, you idiots are all on board because some of you think you’re sticking it to the left. The people you think will suffer don’t depend on any of these groups to succeed. They’ve always been skeptics. You’re the ones who will suffer.
Hillary is to the right of Nixon and share some of the same corporate, Neocon ideology as most Republicans. The, so called, liberal media has lied us into every bad war/weapons deal and the biggest banks that continue to rob us is supported by most on the right who want to give them more freedom to exploit the masses.
Wake up! You’re being played by all these liars. Sessions is an embarrassment. The fact that educated people are considering him shows that education means nothing. The fact that he has lived his entire life with such childish views shows that there are too many psychopaths allowed to govern.
Non US citizens should NEVER be allowed in the USA military.
I know some have, and should be afforded some accommodation.
The practice should be stopped. Hire mercenaries if that is what it takes.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III seems like a man who is 200 years behind his time.
Cullman Alabama was still such a notorious “daylight” county in the early 90s that a large Walmart regional distribution center couldn’t permit Blacks to work any shift beginning or ending after dark lest they be shot on sight, or worse, by any random redneck for the crime merely being present in any public place. The Black workers were prized by management because they were thought to better tolerate the extreme heat of the non-airconditioned warehouses, but travel to and from the facility was just too dangerous for any but the day shifts. I still remember my brother’s shock at learning of it, and of Walmart’s nonchalant acceptance of openly racist nature of the place when he worked in a management position there at the time.
Just as Reagan chose the infamous city of Philadelphia Mississippi to better blow his racist dog whistle, so does Sessions call out to his confederate comrades by here naming one of the most proudly and openly racist places in all of the American Southland.
Both the CIA and every child knows who is ‘most likely to spy’.
Israeli Jew dual-citizens.
Here is a quote from one in support of the thesis: “I am a Jew, and, as a Jew, my first allegiance is to the state of Israel.” Jonathan Pollard – US-born US citizen and Israeli spy.
Time to face that music. Kenya, my ass!
If Sessions focuses his attention on immigrants for spying he will be a danger to the security of the US since the vast majority of spies since WW2 have primarily been home grown and born in the US. His myopia based on xenophobia and racism will create a real and present danger to our security.
Like Jonathan Pollard? US dual citizen. Israeli spy.
Oh yeah,foreign mercenaries,untouched by American values and Constitutional teaching,should be our fall guys for empire and zion.
Hessians for freedom.sheesh.
Yankee come home.
What is it with you idiots,that you would promote lickspittle foreign recruits as beneficial to America?
They all have the same thing in common: Marxist cucks. The whole world is going Fash.. except 4 cucks like these.