Not really. You don’t have to be an American citizen to enlist, but you can’t join unless you’re in the country legally…and even then you can’t reenlist unless you get your citizenship while you’re in. The process is made easier for you if you enlist, but joining the military doesn’t automatically give you citizenship.
Isn’t there a provision allowing the Secretary of Defence to wave that particular requirement? Doesn’t a non-citizen who’s killed in the line of duty automaticallly become a citizen?
I don’t know about that, but I suppose if you’re killed in the line of duty it wouldn’t actually make a difference to you.
Apart from the opportunity to earn citizenship, how does this differ from a “guest-worker” program?
The difference is that the indentured servants wouldn’t be paid. They’d be slaves for 7 years in return for citizenship.
Of course this is a stupid idea. Why would the US government grant citizenship to someone just because they worked as a slave for an American citizen for seven years?
But is sure as hell would to you spouse and/or children.
Sure, when would you like to start? I’ve got the cot set up for you in the basement, and a to-do list a mile long. You’ll even have your own private toilet and sink.
I suppose it would. When I was a recruiter I met a kid and his mom that were illegals. (There are a lot of them in NJ) The kid was 18, but couldn’t join because he was in the US illegally. The mom had been in the US for 20 years. She said she never applied for citizenship because the lines were too long. No lie. Too long for 20 years?
Indentured servitude is alive and well around the world, mostly in Asia and the Middle East. Where it is practiced, it seems to come to little good for anyone. Look up the situations with, for example, Filipino maids in the Middle East.
I just heard a heartbreaking story the other day. A Cameroonian English teacher- my friends brother- got a job teaching English in China (which is considered here to be a pretty developed country). He went there, found he hated the conditions, and went home. He ended up having to sell his house and everything he had ever worked for. It took years to pay back his debt and get his life (which, mud hut and all, he realized wasn’t that bad) back on track.
Anyway, there is an easy answer to this one. The whole damn reason why everyone wants to come to America is that you get your chance to make your fortune, rise up above your class and make something for yourself. If you are an indentured servent, of course, those things don’t happen. “America” isn’t some amazingly awesome place on it’s own. Once an immigrant gets there, it doesn’t take too long to notice that the streets are not paved with gold and it’s cold, lonely, and frankly we work so hard. The few creature comforts you may be able to buy are a poor substitute for your family and culture. It’s the “American dream” that keeps people going. Take away that, and you got nothing.
So who takes these indentured service jobs overseas if it’s such a bad scene? Young women forced into it by their families looking forward to money they send back, along with the trafficers that keep the industry going. These people are often threatened with horrific things should they return.
If you build a framework for slavery, slavery is what will happen. No matter what we do on our end to keep things clean, we can’t keep workings in the countries of origin non-exploitative.
This right here folks, is what the United States is supposed to be all about. I hope and pray that every day we keep our doors open to (legal) immigrants that bring their own interpretation of the American Dream here, along with their cultural differences to meld with the ones that are already here.
Awesome paragraph.
If the mother had been in the US for 20 years and her son is only 18, then wouldn’t the son have been born in the US?
There is historical precedent, of a sort . . . In ancient Rome, any slave owned and freed by a Roman citizen automatically became a Roman citizen. (If Colleen McCullough’s research for her Masters of Rome novels was accurate, some people even sold themselves into slavery as a roundabout way of gaining the citizenship; of course, you would only do to that if you were confident of your ability to earn your freedom – e.g., if you were highly educated Greek who could hope for a position as tutor to a rich family’s children.)
Good question, but he had no SSN number. His mother may have told me she had been here for 20 years in some attempt to get me to somehow enlist him. When I suggested he go get a SS card which he’d need to enlist he blew that off. He’d call me every few days hoping for some magic wand in lieu of his having a SSN, but he never made an attempt to get one…even when I offered to drive him to the Social security office.
…and his mother would plead with me not to report her to INS. (not that I would have)
Human nature being what it is, indentured servitude would be a disaster for the US. The OP must either be kidding or crazy.
What is going to happen to all those people when their 7 years are up? In an idyllic system they would all speak English well and have at least a high schoo equivalent education when they were done. They would also have 7 years experience working in a restaurant, hotel or as a nanny.
Now, year 7 and they are free of their contract with a shiny new citizenship. Where do they go to find work? The same jobs they just left, probably. Except, if it was economically smart for that employer to use an indentured servent last time, wouldn’t they just go import another one? Mean while, our original worker has no home, no savings and no job. How is this good?
I am not advocating this, but couldn’t someone push the limit on “illegal” aliens and turn them into involuntary servants? Sherriff Buford T. Justice busts a bunch of illegal people at an immigration rally. They are charged and convicted as being in the country illegally. Judge Cletus Yokel says that their punishment will be involuntary servitude for a set period of time, say 7 years. Now such a ruling would not be unconstitutional because the alien was convicted of a crime and involuntary servitude is mentioned as a punishment.
Could this happen?
But why are we upset that these people are here?
If we don’t want them here, why not just deport them back to where they came from?
And if we want them here, why not just let them work at whatever jobs they already have?
The proposed solution is incoherent. It presumes that there’s lots of work that can be done, so we bring in indentured servants to do the work, and at the end reward them with citizenship. But why? Why not just allow the people to come here and work as guest workers? Or if we want them to be citizens, let them become citizens? Either we want these people to move to the US, where they can work and become citizens, or we want them to stay out. Indentured servitude is a solution in neither case.
If we want them to come here and work and become citizens, why force them to work as servants? Why not just let them work at ordinary jobs, and once they meet the requirement for citizenship let them become citizens?
Or if we want the foreigners to stay out, why not the radical step of, I don’t know, keeping foreigners out?
The mere fact that some people are selfish doesn’t mean that we should rewrite laws to encourage their selfishness. One might as well say, “Some people like crack, so let’s bring people from the third world to raise, harvest, and distribute crack.” The laws should discourage bad behavior, not encourage it.
…and a whole new slave trade of sorts would probably arise as yokels all over go in search of illegal aliens.