Speech #1140100787

Mr. Chairman. in September of 2014. on the same day Attorney General Eric Holder resigned. the Obama administration took executive action and issued a memo that allowed DACA aliens to begin enlisting in the military. Specifically. President Obamas administration unilaterally expanded eligibility in the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest. or MAVNI. program to include DACA aliens through a September 25. 2014 memo. Prior to this memo. the executive branch never attempted to enlist DACA aliens through MAVNI. Further. military enlistment rules explicitly prohibit illegal aliens from enlisting in the Armed Forces. MAVNI is a military program intended for lawful immigrants and lawful nonimmigrants. The Department of Homeland Securitys Web site states that DACA aliens lack lawful status and are subject to all legal restrictions and prohibitions on individuals in unlawful status. The Gosar amendment would not end the MAVNI program. as open border advocates have falsely claimed. I support the intent of MAVNI. As NumbersUSA accurately states. the Gosar amendment would return the MAVNI program to its original intent by defunding any extension of the memorandum responsible for expanding MAVNI to include DACA beneficiaries. When I offered a similar amendment less than a month ago. DOD reported that only five DACA aliens had enlisted in the Armed Forces. Yesterday. DOD confirmed to my office that 141 total DACA aliens had enlisted in the military through April 30. 2016. as a result of Obamas backdoor amnesty program. As noted by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. CRS. the MAVNI program allows citizenship to be granted to any enlistee who serves at least 1 day of wartime service. MAVNI was never intended to be utilized for the benefit of illegal aliens. Testimony from DOD states that MAVNI was created to recruit legal noncitizens with critical foreign language and cultural skills. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Stock. who created and implemented the MAVNI program. previously stated. as quoted in a Politico story: "Its a major bureaucratic screwup by the Obama administration . .. The MAVNI program is not designed for DACA at all . . . It was rather alarming to see DACAs being put into MAVNI. Someone didnt know what they were doing." An Army Times story also quoted Stock as stating: "It was set up for people who are legally in the country. and had been legal their whole history ... They have to go back and redo all the security screenings. train recruiters all over again ... its one of these things where people want magic to happen. and bureaucracy doesnt work that way." These comments are even more noteworthy. as Stock is a huge amnesty supporter and testified in support of provisions in an earlier version of the DREAM Act. Article 1. section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress clear jurisdiction on immigration matters. Congress has consistently rejected and failed to act on policies that aim to allow illegal aliens to serve in the military. In fact. the House has rejected DACA three times. Furthermore. MAVNI. a pilot program. created by executive order. has never been authorized by Congress. The amendment is supported by Americans for Limited Government. Eagle Forum. the Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR. Heritage Action. and NumbersUSA.