Military, Or Bust

So, Mitt Romney thinks the only way undocumented children of illegal immigrants growing up in the United States should be entitled to citizenship is if they serve in the military.  DREAMERS and their advocates, not-so-much-happy.  The emphasis is mine:

“You’re basically putting undocumented youth in a corner where they have to choose whether they enlist in the military to continue living a life in the shadows,” said Mayra Hidalgo, an undocumented college graduate planning to seek a graduate degree now under the new White House policy ending deportations of DREAM-eligible youth. 

Hidalgo confronted Romney after his NALEO speech, asking him what he’d do for people like her. She went away from the encounter without an answer, she said. 

“We are just as American as anyone else, we’re just missing a piece of paper,” she said of Romney’s plan. “We deserve to have the choice and say in where our future’s going to take us. We deserve to have control of our lives enough in which we can say no or yes concerning joining the military.” 

Other advocates for undocumented children say that compromising on the education path for DREAMers would deny the country more highly-educated citizens, which is what politicians on both sides say the country needs to grow.

They are indeed as American as anyone else.  As American as Mitt Romney’s father, born in Mexico and coming to the United States at age 4.  Just missing the piece of paper, he had.

I’m not really sure if Republicans really believe it is a crop of more highly educated citizens this country needs, in order to grow at this time.  Call me cynical, but even if they do believe this, I am even less sure they want them to be of the Latino-Hispanic-stripe.