Robert Gates statement on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program)

[David Lockmiller]

A New York Times story "Robert Gates: Ending DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program) Will Hurt Immigrant Troops."

During the nearly five years that I was secretary of defense, 2,621 immigrants serving in the United States military became naturalized citizens while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. More than 100 immigrant troops have made the supreme sacrifice in combat during those wars. In that same period, from 2006 to 2011, a total of 45,700 immigrants who wore the uniform of the American military all across the world became American citizens.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, I said that immigrants can read the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence and feel that “they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration.”

I agree.