[b4ke]

They should institute a voluntary conscripted amnesty/asylum for those who entered into the country and are on immigration parole. This program could allow for retroactive application to spouses/children (no extended family transferability until completion of service contract).

There would be no need for sign-on bonus, you could add additional qualifications for g.i. benefits in the form of naturalization.

It would really be a net positive as they would be forced to assimilate into our society in a way that is a net benefit at many different layers of the civil stack. The kind of people who are willing to serve the country rather than acting as a sanctioned entitlement case would be a win/win. No?

[atmavatar]

I'm a little worried that if we implement the "service guarantees citizenship" scheme you allude to, we'll be forced to fight a war against an interstellar insect race soon after.

[riffraff]

I giggled at this, but in starship troopers you'd not inherit citizenship.

OP's proposal seem more like what the Roman empire did granting citizenship to conscripted barbarians, which worked or not depending on your perspective.

[mlrtime]

Don't have to go that far back. The union did this during the Civil War.

A boat comes in from EU with immigrants, men get off the boat, are handled a Union uniform and are put right back on another boat down south to the war.

[paganel]

It worked until it didn't, and when it didn't anymore the failure was spectacular.

[samus]

It worked as long as they were properly integrated into the legionary structure. Auxilia were organized, disciplined, led, and ulimately paid and rewarded like the non-auxilia. The system stopped working because they abandoned it. Due to time pressure, they hired entire war bands and armies as mercenaries led by their kings instead of reorganizing them into Roman-style forces. It didn't help at all that the Romans were prone to cheating them out of their rewards.

[paganel]

They did the hiring part that you mention most probably because it was cheaper (in the context of the then Roman economy, that is).

I also think that the much higher level of taxation inflicted on the (local) Roman population certainly didn’t help, as I feel that by the 3rd-4th century many parts of the Roman hinterland were much less populated than they should have been (had not the higher taxation hindered the Roman demographics, that is). In a way the outside-the-limes “barbarians” had the comparative advantage of not having had to pay those very high taxes, and most probably that was good for their (the “barbarians’”) demographics. And on a large enough time scale demographics is destiny.

[samus]

Yeah, maybe. Money is not the only issue. Battle-hardened troops simply take a long time to be replaced. The early 5th century saw lots of infighting between eastern and western emperors and ambitious provincial rulers, which predictably depleted the army and emptied the coffers of the empire. The Eastern Empire fared better because it was more affluent and more densely settled than the western half.

The fall of the western empire is more accurately described as a fragmentation, after which live mostly went on like it did before. The true downfall of Roman civilization in Italy happened during the decades-long unsuccessful attempt by the Eastern Empire to recover the peninsula.

[b4ke]

No I didn’t say that or allude to it, voluntary conscripted amnesty. They would still have to naturalize as well, and only offer that after a sufficient period of service and all the rigors of training, ait, and actual term.

Do you believe we are not already having an inter-domain/dimensional information war with something of a nature you describe? (Kind of kidding)

[thaumasiotes]

>> if we implement the "service guarantees citizenship" scheme you allude to

> No I didn’t say that or allude to it

Did you forget what you put in your own comment?

>>> There would be no need for sign-on bonus, you could add additional qualifications for g.i. benefits in the form of naturalization.

[b4ke]

Your comment is dismissive, and unhelpful. I think if you were to maybe review the concept in a less shallow manner, you would see this is voluntary, for those already in country on parole anyways. If you think you can dismiss the concept by being disrespectful of your lack of depth I’d suggest you work on comprehension with logic puzzles or the like.

All of what I said requires effort, which is not guaranteed, they are options for the motivated, which is what we want those coming to this country to hold of personal value. Have a nice day though.

[ransom1538]

I feel like "service guarantees citizenship" was debated in 50BC in Ancient Rome. "In this framework, the blood and toil of immigrants won't just contribute to our nation's fabric, but will be the very bedrock of its defense."

We are going dark here.

[b4ke]

I agree the sentiment of that period was dark, and giving the people who have sacrificed their homes and have made a perilous journey here hope is what they came for to begin with. There is an argument to be made for ejecting people with no prospects outside of abhorrence, this is my attempting to soften it with something to strive for.

If we don’t do things like this, what do we expect these people who need to care for themselves and potentially their families are going to be willing to do?

We also have to be serious in consideration of the current climate, and having recruiting down will just lead to drafts or forced conscriptions if the climate turns further.

I wish we wouldn’t have enabled the current belief in the country being an opportunity for foreign actors to come to without using the proper mechanisms. Unfortunately it has and we are now in a situation that is untenable. We can hold back in fear of the “invasion” or come up with plans to integrate and/or assimilate these individuals in their family that will be a benefit or leave them to languish to our detriment.

[drewcoo]

> They should institute a voluntary conscripted amnesty/asylum

Conscription by definition is involuntary.

[b4ke]

I keep hearing about it being military-aged men whom are illegally emigrating to the u.s., and low recruiting would seem like a low-hanging fruit in the form of conscription for immigrants.

I mean it also would afford their actual stations more contract labor in non-military support roles at their posts for their spouses. Also would reduce recruitment costs as you wouldn’t need so many incentives to get em through the door, reduce over-crowded shelters, and the kind of people willing to serve and improve their station are the kind of immigrants we profess to want.

[ben_w]

For the most part, my views on migration are "why do we even have borders?" (And then I look at humans choosing to be all Machiavellian to each other and am sad for a bit).

Given we live in a world with borders where nations try to subvert each other to their own interests, I think training migrants to use weapons you give them is going to be a great way for, say, America to give Mexico a military for free. (As a European, I think this would be hilarious… but more as a plot for a Peter Sellers film rather than as actual news to wake up to).

[mlrtime]

> why do we even have borders?

Do you mean like right now? You would propose removing world wide borders and citizenship requirements?

Or do you mean in a utopian future? If the former, is there any real programmatic intelligent analysis of how this would actually happen and what the negatives would be?

[ben_w]

> You would propose removing world wide borders and citizenship requirements?

From the point of view of citizens or economies rather than nations, their removal would apparently be a good thing, free movement boosting trade and the economy: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/08/06/open-borders-econ... (Michael Clemens also quoted in other papers, I don't think I've heard of wbur.org before).

But it's the same problem as anarchy: to focus on only some aspect of freedom is to ignore harms prevented by the absence of, or limits to, that freedom.

> If the former, is there any real programmatic intelligent analysis of how this would actually happen and what the negatives would be?

I lack the necessary foundation to distinguish between such an analysis and a think-piece in a newspaper (or, these days, the output of a LLM, or a YouTuber in a suit and tie). Link I gave above? I can Google Michael Clemens, but even seeing a list of accolades whose standards I don't know either, means I can't tell how he and his views are rated by other economists. And worse, when I do look up a list of works by Michael Clemens, one of the results tells me:

"Michael A. Clemens [\n] Not to be confused with: Michael Peter Clements" - https://ideas.repec.org/e/pcl20.html

(And I'm only 80% sure the one quoted in the paper was A. not P.)

And even if he's great, Gell-Mann Amnesia effect says I can't just assume that he'd necessarily agree with how his views were presented by the press.

Treat my position as vibes, not a policy proposal.

[tenpies]

> They should institute a voluntary conscripted amnesty/asylum for those who entered into the country and are on immigration parole.

There are ways to do this. The French Foreign Legion is perhaps the most time tested, but the requirements it has also mean that the model is incompatible with US Democrat party ideology:

* Only male recruits.

* Criminal history check, including with Interpol

* Identity must be verificiable with official documents from country of origin

* Health screening including dental, psychological, and fitness. No waivers for anything.

The initial contract is for 5 years. If you make it and re-enlist for an additional contract (usually a couple of years), you can now apply for French citizenship.

See: https://foreignlegion.info/joining/#Requirements