Imagine you are a member of the United States military deployed on the front lines confronting ISIS or other terrorist threats. Suddenly you get a desperate phone call from home — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested your family and they’re facing deportation.

Think it can’t happen? Think again. Think Trump.

The Trump administration’s draconian and hastily drafted immigration orders rescind a key protection for military families so that now even military spouses and children can be rounded up and deported. This will weaken our armed forces. It will harm thousands of military families. And it’s wrong.


In 2013, the Department of Homeland Security, at the request of the Defense Department, issue a policy memorandum aimed at preventing the deportation of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members through a program called “Parole in Place.”

Put simply, the program allowed immigration authorities to give the immediate family of military service members a temporary reprieve from enforcement actions based on their immigration status. It specifically barred those with criminal convictions from these protections.

This was as much about national security as it was about upholding our commitment to support our troops. The Department of Homeland Security wrote, at the time, that “military preparedness can potentially be adversely affected if active members of the U.S. armed forces … worry about the immigration status of their spouses, parents and children.” We need our service members focused on accomplishing their mission and the safety of each other.


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When you deploy to war, your greatest worry is not yourself. You worry about your family left behind. The least we can promise those willing to give their life for our country is that their immediate family members can remain in that same country. By all accounts, the policy has worked well.

Yet the Trump administration’s new immigration enforcement policy eviscerated “Parole in Place” protections. It does not continue a policy that reflects a promise made to recruits who joined the United States military in the last four years.


The new enforcement directive could have easily maintained the protections of this unique program, as it did a few others. It could have made clear that agents of the U.S. government will not round up and deport the spouses and children of our active duty service members.

Instead, it casually dispenses with exercises of executive discretion based on a “specified class or category of aliens.” The administration either did not know or did not care that one of these specified classes included military families.

That may be good politics for the red states, but it’s terrible national security policy for the United States, and a slap in the face to thousands of deployed troops with immigrant roots.


We cannot allow our troops to be consumed with fear and anxiety about their families while deployed on the front lines. We cannot indiscriminately endanger the family members of the citizens who sacrifice the most for our nation.

The initial reasoning and effort that created this program was sound. It strengthens our military and our country. It is wrong to go back on our word and our commitment to the very citizens who sacrifice the most. It isn’t enough to clap for veterans in airports or once a year on a holiday. We show our true appreciation by keeping our word, in this instance by protecting their families.

The Trump administration must immediately and explicitly clarify that the “Parole in Place” program for military families remains the law of the land. If Trump can turn out sweeping executive orders in a matter of days, surely he can fix this terrible mistake in a matter of minutes.


Fletcher is a U.S. Marines combat veteran, a professor of practice in political science at UC San Diego and a former member of the California Assembly representing the 75th District. Twitter: @nathanfletcher