Democrats Pick a Fight Over Letting DREAMers Enlist in the Military

Advocates can point to a dozen or so moments when the 2013 Senate immigration bill died. The final moment—the Seahawks interception toss at the one yard line—was the surprise defeat of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia. Cantor was seen to favor some popular, small immigration policy change once most of the GOP had escaped primary election season. “There’s a Biblical root and a tradition in this country that says we don’t hold children liable for their parents’ acts, and when you have kids who may have been brought here, let’s say, at 2 months old, unbeknownst to them, and they’ve been here all their lives and they want to serve in our military,” he told one interviewer.

Days later, he was out of a job. His successor, Representative David Brat, is working now to strip language out of the National Defense Authorization Act related to the “Enable DREAMers to Serve in Uniform” amendment. Introduced last month by Representative Ruben Gallego, it passed even though the freshman Democrat was, well, a freshman Democrat. It would give the secretary of defense the freedom to enlist people eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival. And that is seen as a clear threat by Brat and Alabama Representative Mo Brooks.