Stricter Trump administration immigration policies have stymied Pentagon plans to restart a programme that allowed thousands of people with critical medical or Asian and African language skills to join the military and become American citizens, according to several US officials.
The decade-old programme has been on hold since 2016 amid concerns that immigrant recruits were not being screened well enough, and security threats were slipping through the system. Defense officials shored up the vetting process, and planned to relaunch the programme earlier this month.
But there was an unexpected barrier when Homeland Security officials said they would not be able to protect new immigrant recruits from being deported when their temporary visas expired after they signed a contract to join the military, the US officials said. They were not authorised to publicly describe internal discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The programme is called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest programme, or MAVNI. The plan to restart it was backed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who believes that noncitizens can bring key skills, language abilities, and cultural knowledge to the military.