‘They can’t touch your family for a year’

Editor’s note: Last names were withheld to protect the family’s privacy, not at their request but at the newspaper’s discretion.

High school senior Jessica is a high honor roll student in the law enforcement program at Orange-Ulster BOCES who does cheer and school musicals and looks after her younger brothers while their parents are at work.

Much as she loves singing and much as a career in the FBI intrigues her, the pragmatic 17-year-old is well into the process of joining the National Guard.

“The whole reason I wanted to go in was because my parents are not citizens here,” said Jessica, who has lived in Goshen all her life.

When she learned through a recruiter’s presentation at school that the military offered a pathway to citizenship for her parents, she was all ears.

She and her brothers, ages 13 and 7, were born here and are American citizens. But their parents, who were brought by their families to the United States from Mexico when they were young - her mom when she was about 8, her dad when he was a teenager - do not have full citizenship.

Her mother, Patricia, is a nurse who through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has a working visa that must be renewed every two years. Her father, who builds furniture, has been undocumented for more than 30 years. He pays taxes but does not have a Social Security number.

“I was finding out that the first year that I am in the Army or the National Guard, they are protected for a whole year. (My family) cannot be touched by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) or anyone to deport them back or send them away. And during that one year, they go through this process of getting their green card,” Jessica said. “So that was just the big first thing I saw. I saw an opportunity to get my parents a green card, and I went for it.”

This path to citizenship through military service is not new, but many Latinos - the fastest-growing segment of the military - are finding it particularly enticing as the heat is turned up on undocumented immigrants.

As Jessica finishes her last year of high school, her older cousin was in basic training in Missouri, having joined the Army for the same reason.

“That’s a big reason why a lot of people do go into the military because right now especially is a scary time for immigrants,” she said. “Especially because ICE has been around a lot more.”

‘Only thing they have’

“Many immigrants are taking drastic measures to remain in the country,” said Chester-based immigration lawyer Michele Murphy, mentioning as examples getting married fraudulently, rolling the dice in applying for political asylum or enlisting.

“Enrolling in the military is something that they do to protect their families mostly, particularly Latinos,” she said. “It’s not that they necessarily want to go to war, it’s just that it’s the only thing they have.”

Other than waiting until Jessica turns 21 and can sponsor her parents for a green card, there is no route to naturalization for her and her husband, said Patricia, Jessica’s mother.

“We seen so many lawyers, and there’s no one that was able to help us as of yet. They always say - when one of my kids is of the age of 21 or if they join the military.”

She and her husband are legally married or else marrying a citizen would be another option, Patricia added.

No guarantee

Jessica has done her homework and is confident that the military will honor its end of the bargain. The military provides a lawyer who will walk her parents through the process, she explained.

She knows people who have been through it before.

“They’ve all been able to get a green card. We made sure. That was one of the biggest things that I wanted to make sure of that was going to happen. As soon as I get in, the first day I sign my contract, is when they’re eligible, and that’s when the process starts.”

If all goes according to plan and Jessica passes her background screening and physical tests, she will leave for basic training in August and be back by January.

Increasingly, though, the military pipeline to citizenship is no guarantee, cautioned Murphy. That’s true even for family members who check all the boxes, such as ability to read, write and speak English and “good moral character” as demonstrated by a clean arrest record going back at least five years.

The levers controlling that pipeline are adjusted by politics, which means the number of people who gain citizenship through the military fluctuates drastically depending who’s in power.

All signs suggest that pathways to citizenship - military or otherwise - are contracting in President Trump’s second term.

Will promises be kept?

Kathy Brieger, longtime executive director of the Warwick Area Farmworker Organization, is deeply concerned that the military may not make good on its word.

When Jessica mentioned her plan to join the National Guard, Brieger’s face fell. It’s not because she doesn’t support the military, but because after 35 years in this job, Brieger for the first time has serious doubts whether promises made to potential enlistees will be honored.

“What I’m afraid of is when students are convinced that they will be able to help their parents, I am extremely alarmed because I don’t trust that that will happen.”

In this politically unstable environment, “there are no guarantees.” “The name of the game is uncertainty,” she said.

“For a long time, many of our kids have gone into the military. It’s great. It helps develop people, gives them training and opportunities to learn valuable skills, better their lives in many ways and serve the country many of them have been born into and lived their entire lives in,” said Brieger.

Her family’s strong military tradition includes her son, who was an officer in the National Guard, and a stretch in her early career working at a veterans hospital.

Service comes with grave risks of being wounded, killed or left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and Brieger fears that young people motivated by familial duty are taking those risks for a promise that may prove false.

“If a person has been promised something, in America, you’d like to see that promise kept,” she said. “I’ve seen this many times and have not had this fear until this year.”

Risk vs. reward

Going into the military is “a little scary,” said Jessica. (One of her concerns is that she heard from her cousin that during basic training, you can only have your phone an hour a day.)

For her parents, there was nothing little about the fear they felt when their eldest child and only daughter brought up the idea of enlisting.

“When she came to me the first time, I was like, Wait, you’re going to go to war and they’re going to kill you and I’m going to lose my daughter? That’s the first thing you think, you know,” said Patricia.

Their fear is not naïve. Latinos make up 18 percent of the armed forces but only 9 percent of the officer class, according to Department of Defense data from 2023. Therefore, they see a disproportionate share of combat.

Jessica’s parents tried to talk her out of it. “If you’re going to do it because of us, don’t do it,” her mother said, describing their initial reaction.

She and her husband saw little point in her enlisting because when Jessica turns 21, she can sponsor her parents for a green card.

“In the beginning, my husband was like, ‘I’d rather not be legal if it’s going to take you to go do that. We’d rather have you here,’ ” said Patricia. “My husband’s been illegal for over 30 years, so three more years is nothing.”

But after a “deep dive,” Jessica concluded that as a member of the reserves during peace time, the chance that she would end up being deployed is slim.

Meanwhile, the benefits that come with serving for at least three years would stand her in good stead all her life, beginning with paid college tuition.

The connections she will make in the military, Jessica believes, can eventually be used to help her younger brothers - to whom Jessica is “like a second mom,” according to Patricia - with things, such as getting into good schools.

“If they need financial help or if they need help in any sort of way, they can kind of give us connections and resources to use to help them,” Jessica said.

There’s plenty of data to support her optimism. In 2023, for instance, the unemployment rate for Hispanic veterans was just 2.9 percent, compared to 4.5 percent for their nonveteran counterparts, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Patricia knows her daughter well enough to know there is no point in trying to talk her out of her decision.

“You know, she’s very smart. When she found out about all the benefits and everything else, she also wanted to do it because of that, not only because she wanted to get us legal.

“At the end of the day, she’s still my baby, so, you know, for me it’s a little harder. But I’m also going to support whatever decision she makes.

“Making her not do what she wants is only going to make it worse. It is going to be hard for me, but all I can do is support whatever she wants to do.”

Jessica chose the National Guard “because I would have quote unquote ‘a normal life,’” she explained. After six months of basic training, she’d come home and only have to leave for training one weekend every month and two weeks in the summer, she said.

During that time she’d be able to have a full-time job and eventually go to college, with her tuition covered by the Army. She hopes to study auto mechanics at Manhattan University.

“Nothing really changes with this,” she said. “I get to give them their green card, and that peace of mind.”

Jessica’s recruiter, Sgt. Adam Rivera of the New York National Guard, answered a call from this reporter and directed it up the chain of command. New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs Director Eric Durr declined to comment.

The National Guard press desk referred this reporter to ICE, which did not return an email immediately.

Higher education is a goal Jessica’s parents wholeheartedly share. “I want my kids to go to college,” said Patricia, “and I want them to have the best they can, even if I have to work two jobs or, you know, a couple shifts.”

She worked in factories after arriving in the U.S.. Once she got her DACA papers in 2013, she became a medical assistant, then put herself through school a second time to become a licensed practical nurse.

The chance at a better life is the reason that Patricia’s parents brought her from Mexico decades ago.

“In Mexico, it’s almost impossible to give your kids a career, to build a house, or to just keep them and dress them. It’s really hard to live in Mexico - especially when my mom had four kids at that time,” said Patricia, referring to her early years in Oaxaca.

Life-changing power of citizenship

Although Jessica’s parents would be happy to wait until she turns 21, Patricia acknowledges that gaining citizenship will change their family’s life significantly.

She expects to be able to afford to go back to nursing school to become a registered nurse, as her colleagues and teachers have long encouraged her to do, because as a citizen she would be eligible for financial aid. (Unlike most of her classmates, she had to pay the full cost of her education out of pocket.)

With her husband on the mortgage, they could get a decent rate, which would allow the family to move out of the apartment they rent and buy a house.

Then there’s the mental load they finally would be able to lay down.

The family is determined not to live in fear, regardless of their status. “Like I said to my husband, ‘We’re not criminals, so why we would we be afraid?’ ” said Patricia. “We just have to keep working and we will be fine, and if something happens, then we just have to figure it out when it comes.”

Full citizenship would make it far easier to go about their lives free of that shadow.

“It would be so much better because then I wouldn’t be afraid of my husband, you know, getting deported or me getting deported. Because again, what I have, it’s only a permit, so they can cancel it at any time. It’s not permanent.

“So of course, I am scared that they might cancel it and then I’d end up being deported and then not be able to, you know, do what I want for my kids.”