OP-ED: Legal immigration is key to continued growth, success
Recruiters for the police, firefighters, and the military have similar concerns right now. Due to shifting demographics, competition from other sectors, public perception, and most significantly, rigorous requirements which include physical fitness, background checks, and difficult training programs, the number of individuals needed to sufficiently fill the openings in these professions has seen significant shortages.
According to Los Angeles 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s webpage, “In Los Angeles County and nationwide, law enforcement agencies are struggling with recruiting and hiring qualified sworn personnel.” Barger went on to say, “The department is meeting many of its existing responsibilities by relying heavily on mandatory overtime, which prevents the department from addressing additional needs and places an added burden on deputies working extra hours.” Consequently, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is seeking an additional 1,100 officers.
The Detectives Endowment Association in New York City posted, “In 2022, about 3,700 officers departed. This represented a 32% increase in departures over the previous year and fewer than 2000 new officers were hired.”
In fact, with an all-volunteer military, shortfalls in recruits are becoming more significant every year. According to a news story on Spectrum 1 TV from El Paso, Texas, the Army missed its recruiting goal in the 2022 fiscal year by 25% or 15,000 active-duty soldiers. And the Military Times stated, “the Navy will miss their annual goal by about 6,000, and the Air Force by at least 10,000 recruits.”
Because of these challenges relating to everything from public perception to physical fitness, the United States military has decided to seek additional recruits from our legal immigrants. The Associated Press ran a story citing an example of a young woman who had immigrated to America from Nepal who recently joined the U.S. Army Reserve. Her enlistment occurred due to the efforts of Staff Sgt. Kalden Lama. The Dallas recruiter approached her “on a Facebook group that helps Nepalese people in America connect.”
The carrot for these legal immigrants is a faster path to citizenship for those who sign up. According to the AP article, “Struggling to overcome recruiting shortfalls, the Army and the Air Force have bolstered their marketing to entice legal residents to enlist, putting out pamphlets, working social media, and broadening their outreach, particularly in inner cities. One key element is the use of recruiters with similar backgrounds to these potential recruits.”
Successful recruiting of legal immigrants is nothing new as these recruits look for everything from education benefits to American citizenship. The challenge is they also require additional screening and assistance in simply completing the necessary forms in English. Although these recruitment efforts don’t result in large numbers of recruits, it helps as every service except the Marines is falling short of their required recruitment goals.
Obviously, with a low unemployment rate, the military competes with what is often higher-compensating, less-risky positions in the private sector. The real challenge, however, seems to be that, according to the AP, a little more than “20% of applicants meet the physical, mental, and character requirements to join.”
According to these published accounts, these recruits are from Cameroon, Jamaica, Kenya, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Haiti, Nepal, Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, and by the time many of the recruits finish their training “they are sworn in as American citizens.”
The primary reason I selected this topic was due to my personal experiences in places like Nigeria, Bosnia, Serbia, and other countries where it is evident that the wish, even now, to be a United States citizen is overwhelming for many individuals who have legally immigrated here.
It’s important to remember that, except for the Native Americans, the forebears of U.S. citizens came from other countries, and it has worked out pretty darn well. With declining birth rates, legal immigration is one key to our continued growth and success as a country.
Nick Jacobs is a Wndber resident.