In the centuries preceding the fall of Rome, the late-stage empire bolstered the ranks of its Legions with foreign mercenaries recruited from once-hostile barbarian tribes, offsetting low enlistment among Roman citizens.
While many historians see this as a contributing factor in Rome’s collapse, elected leaders in the United States Congress seem eager to adopt a similar approach in the 21st Century, evidenced by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) proposing that illegal immigrants be recruited into the U.S. military.
During a speech delivered on the Senate floor on Monday, Senator Durbin — who just last week blocked a subpoena of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s flight records — lamented the recruitment crisis plaguing the U.S. Armed Forces.
According to the latest statistics, recruitment numbers across all branches of the military have hit a fifty-year low following the botched Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021. Additionally, the Pentagon’s multi-million-dollar Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion campaigns, the forced removal of 8,400 service members who rejected the COVID-19 vaccine, and a severe drop-off in the general public’s physical and mental fitness have left the military with a recruitment shortfall of nearly 25 percent.
Related: The Woke Military Recruitment Crisis
Meanwhile, the largely unattended U.S.-Mexico border has seen a daily influx of immigrants from South and Central America and beyond — most of them single males between 18 and 40.
Thousands of single adult men — from Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, and Egypt, along with countries in the Middle East and Asia — are illegally crossing the southern border every single day.
This is the reality of Biden's border crisis. pic.twitter.com/R4OWaTESCO
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 5, 2023
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However, employing the age-old wisdom of never letting a good crisis go to waste, Senator Durbin has proposed a way to solve both problems at once.
“Yes, we need order at the border. Yes, we need to have changes in the laws that reflect the reality of the overwhelming numbers from all over the world who are coming to our shores and our border. But there’s also an incredible demand for legal immigration into this country, even now,” Durbin said.
Continuing by referencing a bill put forward by fellow Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth (D), Durbin argued that the two national security crises could be solved by recruiting qualified illegal immigrants into the military in exchange for citizenship. Provided a foreign national can pass a physical exam and a background check, the senator believes that they should be allowed to serve honorably and be rewarded with legal status.
“Do you know what the recruiting numbers are at the Army and the Navy and the Air Force?” Durbin asked. “They can’t reach their quotas each month. 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 that country.”
“Should we give them a chance?” he posited. “I think we should.”
“And it is a mark of a tyrant to have men of foreign extraction rather than citizens as guests at table and companions, feeling that citizens are hostile, but strangers make no claim against him.” – Aristotle, Politics
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