Democrat Senator Suggests Illegal Immigrants Earn Citizenship by Joining Military

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) speaks in Washington, on Aug. 5, 2020. (Carolyn Kaster/Getty Images

A top Democratic senator suggested that illegal immigrants should be able to serve in the U.S. military, a comment that drew immediate pushback from Republicans.

“Do you know what the recruiting numbers are at the Army, Navy, and the Air Force? They can’t reach their quotas each month,“ Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on the floor Monday. ”They can’t find enough people to join our military forces. And there are those who are undocumented who want the chance to serve and risk their lives for this country. Should we give them a chance? I think we should.”

Mr. Durbin did not elaborate in his speech on how allowing illegal immigrants into the U.S. military might play out.

“In my state of Illinois, in Chicago, [and] in the rural areas downstate, we’re holding our breath hoping that we can keep hospitals open. You know why? We don’t have enough medical personnel. And yet there are people all around this world who have medical credentials as doctors and nurses and skilled technicians who want to come to the United States, but we don’t give them the chance,” the No. 2 Senate Democrat continued to say, according to a transcript.

His suggestion was that illegal immigrants should be able to earn their U.S. citizenship by serving in the military.

“My colleague from the state of Illinois has legislation which addresses one aspect of that. Her bill—and I hope I describe it accurately—says that if you are an undocumented person in this country and you can pass the physical and the required test, background test, the like, that you can serve in our military, and if you do it honorably, we will make you citizens of the United States,” the senator said.

But the comment was met with immediate pushback from Republican lawmakers and conservative media outlets.

“So, the Democrats want to flood the country with illegal aliens, enlist them in the military, and make them citizens. They broke the laws invading this country, and they expect them to take an oath to support and defend our nation? Are they out of their minds?” Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) wrote on X, or Twitter, in response.

Another Republican, Joe Kent, a former U.S. Army green beret who is running for a House seat in Washington, said that “manning our military with people whose first act in our nation was to violate its sovereignty can never be trusted with our defense.”

“I served [with] many great Americans who earned their citizenship by serving in our military, all of them legally entered our nation. We cannot tolerate or normalize the use of illegals in any workforce, especially our military,” he added.

Immigration Battle

The comments on the Senate floor come as lawmakers grapple with whether to increase border security amid record-high illegal immigration in recent years. Republicans have said that the surge in illegal immigration is due to the Biden administration’s policies, while Democrats have said it’s due to broader economic issues and the previous administration’s policies.

A core group of Republican and Democrat senators have been eying a deal that would provide money for the wars overseas in exchange for changes to the asylum process and, in particular, humanitarian parole, which has been a go-to tool by the Biden administration to manage the swell of migrants at the border, but is being challenged in court.

Negotiating behind closed doors, the senators have discussed making it tougher for illegal immigrants to pass initial screening used by asylum officers to decide whether a person can stay in the country to pursue their asylum case, according to The Associated Press.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week told GOP senators in a meeting that he needs real border security changes as part of President Joe Biden’s broader war funding package.

Mexico's federal police stand guard at the US-Mexico border fence in Calexico, California, as seen from Mexicali, Baja California state, Mexico, on April 5, 2019. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

Since early 2021, the Biden administration has tallied more than 2 million arrests for illegal crossings in each of the last two years—the highest ever recorded—and more than twice as many from the year before COVID-19. As President Biden seeks reelection next year, he is potentially facing Republican front-runner and former President Donald Trump, who is campaigning on launching the “largest domestic deportation” operation in U.S. history.

During recent hearings, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Congress the administration is working to manage the situation, even as Congress has failed to update the immigration system for decades. Republicans, meanwhile, have threatened the prospect of impeaching Mr. Mayorkas over what they have said is his dereliction of duty on border security.

Recent polls, meanwhile, suggest that a growing number of Americans are souring on the Biden administration’s handling of immigration. A Siena College poll last month found that about 75 percent of New York Democrats stated that the recent influx of migrants to the state is at least a “somewhat serious” issue that needs to be addressed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.