Pentagon developing plan to scrutinize recruits with green cards and other foreign ties, memos show

[herding cats]

Source: Washington Post

The Pentagon, citing terrorism and espionage fears, is developing a plan to scrutinize prospective recruits with foreign ties, including some U.S. citizens, after a related effort targeting thousands of green-card holders was blocked by a federal judge last year.

The new policy, still in development, will be distributed to the military services by no later than Feb. 15, according to two defense officials and several Defense Department memos obtained by The Washington Post. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity.

The new vetting would likely screen thousands of recruits per year who have what the Pentagon considers “foreign nexus” risks, including Americans who marry a foreign spouse and who have family members with dual citizenship, the memos said. Anyone identified for the screening would not be allowed to attend recruit training until they are cleared, a process that could take days for some but drag on much longer for others.

One draft document, labeled “predecisional,” has circulated in recent weeks among senior officials and others who oversee recruiting. It is attributed to Joseph D. Kernan, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and James N. Stewart, who performs the duties of undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, a post President Trump has left without a permanent political appointee since Robert Wilkie left it to run the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/01/16/pentagon-developing-plan-scrutinize-recruits-with-green-cards-other-foreign-ties-memos-show/?utm_term=.e9418343ef79

[Maxheader]

1. Wasn't this 'vetting' already being done?

The new vetting would likely screen thousands of recruits per year who have what the Pentagon considers “foreign nexus” risks, including Americans who marry a foreign spouse and who have family members with dual citizenship, the memos said. Anyone identified for the screening would not be allowed to attend recruit training until they are cleared, a process that could take days for some but drag on much longer for others.

[DRoseDARs]

5. Probably, but likely didn't include the probing question of, "Is the recruit a shade of Not-White?"

eom

[iluvtennis]

12. + agree

[NotHardly]

2. Scruitinizing recruits

I would like to offer that it might be a really good idea to scrutinize troops for links/memberships to neo-Nazi, Proud Boys, white nationalist, anti-muslin (name the hated group) and similar parties listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and those previously named in FBI research. It should be done for national security, troop safety, and security, and other identified national security issues.

[DBoon]

11. absolutely

we should

[pazzyanne]

3. There goes our all volunteer armed forces!

The tRump administration get rid of legitimate regulations and then puts anti-civil rights rules and regulation in place of them. No looking at the impact on the future for them!

[Honeycombe8]

4. I would've thought they started doing this after 9/11???? nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. "Americans who marry a foreign spouse" - Trump, Mnuchin ...

... yeah, maybe it is suspicious after all.

[not fooled]

8. Yeah

If they want to get rid of security risks with foreign allegiances, the White House would be a good place to start. And, R- congressmembers.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. Drumpf getting paranoid

Scary brown people!!!!!!!!!!!

[akraven]

9. OMG, I'd have been out before I was in.....

Mom was born in Delaware, and I think the Repukes think that's a foreign country...…….

[dalton99a]

10. "People who have foreign contacts, a birthplace outside the United States"

Among the people who could be targets of the foreign-nexus screening are people who have foreign contacts, foreign citizenship, dual citizenship, a birthplace outside the United States if born to foreign parents, family members who are not U.S. citizens, and immediate family members who have dual citizenship, according to one of the memos.

Other factors that could require such screening include possessing a non-U.S. passport, having financial interests abroad, residing outside the United States for more than three of the previous 10 years and living in the country for less than the last five consecutive years unless the circumstances involved work related to the U.S. government.

A Dec. 21 memo prepared by Stephanie P. Miller, who oversees recruitment policy for the Pentagon, says the Defense Department recognized gaps associated with its screening of individuals with foreign ties “since the receipt of specific reporting beginning of 2016,” though the memo does not specify what that information covers. But the concern stretches to some American citizens, too, she argued.

“DoD recognizes that some U.S. citizens pose a similar risk by virtue of their foreign associations, foreign travel, marriage to a foreign spouse, or dual citizenship,” she wrote. “It is imperative to treat the risk related to a foreign nexus in a similar fashion for any recruit or Service member, regardless of citizenship.”