When Margaret Stock accepted her first pro bono immigration case as a young lawyer fresh out of Harvard, she was told it would take ten hours. “400 hours later, I was an immigration lawyer.”The government had “behaved badly” and Margaret was able to save her Polish client from deportation. “I was totally fascinated with the area of law after having actually done a case. I was like, wow, this is such a mess, and the government’s trying to do bad things to these people and this isn’t right. It’s not American.”
Since that first case, Margaret has gone on to become one of the most knowledgeable and influential experts on the intersection of immigration and military law and much more. She regularly testifies before Congress, received a MacArthur Genius grant, taught at West Point, created the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (“MAVNI”) Program partially at the prompting of Senator John McCain, and literally wrote the book on the subject titled Immigration Law & the Military, published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
As if that’s not enough, when I asked her about her experience in the Army, she talked about the thrill of “jumping out of perfectly good airplanes,” carrying heavy packs, and, due to a paperwork error, getting assigned to lead an infantry unit of 35 men before women were normally permitted to hold those roles.
Like Shawn and Chris from earlier this week, Margaret is motivated by the idea that it’s our responsibility to actualize the foundational, revolutionary ideals of America—not give them up when our country fails to live up to its principles. Margaret’s gut-punch from that first encounter with the immigration system—”it’s not American”—is a reaction I find across the dozens of people I’ve interviewed over the years.
There’s a lot of discussion right now about how to talk about immigration in a way that resonates outside of an echo-chamber of die-hard allies. It has always been my view that the best way to convince someone that our immigration system is broken is simply to expose that person to it. Whether that’s law students participating in a clinic, going to observe immigration court hearings, or helping refugees with the resettlement process, nothing breaks through the rhetoric quite as effectively as seeing how the immigration system works, and doesn’t work, for yourself. And to see the chasm between what America claims as its core values and how the immigration system actually treats people.
Margaret has spent much of her career trying to make the immigration system work better, not just for immigrants (although that’s important), but for America as a country. One way she does this is by explaining why immigrants are not a threat to national security, but vital to it. She cited the long history of immigrants playing decisive roles in the Revolutionary War and wars since then, the need for immigrants to work with the U.S. military and intelligence community after 9/11, and the vital role of immigrants in maintaining military readiness.
Immigrants are typically more motivated to serve in the armed forces, and it sounds like they arrive more physically and mentally ready, have lower attrition rates and higher re-enlistment rates, and thrive in military culture more than their U.S.-born counterparts. Green card holders in particular have already gone through a vetting process to get, and keep, that green card, so they are already ahead of their American-born peers on average. As Margaret said, “To get a green card, you have to qualify for one. To get U.S. citizenship by being born in America, you don’t have to have any particular qualifications.”
Margaret explains why the history is longer and more decisive than most people realize. German Jewish refugees were naturalized at basic training during World War II, sent back to interrogate German POWs on the Western Front, and were responsible for 60% of actionable intelligence there. “You can argue that they won the war for the United States,” Margaret said.
After 9/11, the U.S. already had the intelligence needed to stop the attacks before they happened. It just hadn’t been translated because nobody could read it. That failure is part of what drove Margaret to design the MAVNI program, which recruited noncitizens with critical language and medical skills and put them on an accelerated path to citizenship.
She described how immigrant recruits scored 20 points higher on the Armed Forces Qualification Test than native-born recruits, had lower dropout rates from basic training, and re-enlisted at higher rates. At the Pentagon, she framed it simply as a good return on investment. It is also worth noting that only about two in ten Americans currently meet basic military enlistment standards, due to what Margaret described as obesity, drug use, and other disqualifying factors.
Just a caveat here to readers who might squirm at talking about immigration as a national security issue. I know a lot of people within the academic and activist worlds don’t want to talk about this because of (justified) concerns about how national security has been weaponized against immigrants. At the same time, I’m increasingly convinced that ceding the entire national security conversation to a small slice of the unhinged far right is not doing anyone any favors—including immigrants and refugees themselves. I’m open to discussion on this, so let me know what you think.