A Shameful Policy
When I enlisted in the Army on September 11, 2002, exactly one year after the 9/11 attacks, I joined with the understanding that I would help defend this country by defeating our enemies in combat. This was an issue of national defense: these enemies existed in far away places, in countries that were hostile to the USA, and there was cause and justification to wage war against them. My service – and the service of those who stood by me – meant that our country would be safer and be able to spread our goodwill to other parts of the world. This was my understanding of the commitment I made when I swore to uphold the constitution – the same oath service members take today. This commitment is rooted in upholding and advancing what should be our shared values – freedom, peace, equality under the law, and defense of human dignity. As a veteran, when I read that the Trump administration wants to use military facilities to detain migrants – including in my home state of California – I cannot help but be embarrassed, once again, by our inability to live up to these values.
In addition to creating an operational nightmare for the boots on the ground, involving the armed forces in domestic law enforcement violates the values many Americans, and indeed many current service members, hold as crucial to our national identity. We don’t have to look far to have an understanding of how this potential for moral injury could cause deep harm on our men and women in uniform – we can reflect on the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). From the power vacuum in Iraq that led to the rise of ISIS, to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that saw the return of Taliban control, our leaders forced many service members to act against their understanding of American values and their own personal morality. This created a crisis of moral injury among GWOT veterans that led to rising rates of depression and suicide. I fear that using military facilities to house migrants in substandard living conditions, and making service members perform duties to guard these locations – something that is outside their normal military roles, will have a similar devastating effect on our servicemembers.
This will also certainly cause harm for immigrants being detained and deported. Treating people as enemies before they’ve had due process is a betrayal of American law, and American values. Many of those that will be swept up by these mass deportation efforts are hard working, peaceful people who saw our country as a beacon they followed in search of a better life. Many of the migrants targeted by this policy will have valid asylum claims. This process strips them of that right before they even see a courtroom. This is not who we are—or who we should be—as Americans. We are a nation that welcomes, not one that punishes people by using military force against them. It is the kind of America that I hope we can be again.
Chris Muravez served nearly a decade in the U.S. Army and Army National Guard with a deployment to Iraq. He currently lives in California's San Francisco Bay Area.
