Executive Summary

Current debates about how to handle the population of Dreamers in the United States frequently focus on either humanitarian or rule-of-law concerns. Advocates for this population, which includes the 1.9 million undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, frequently argue that it is wrong to penalize or threaten young adults with deportation. These children were raised in the United States, and often have known no other home. Opponents, meanwhile, frequently focus on whether President Barack Obama had the legal authority to shield this population from deportation when he created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA—a move he made via executive order in 2012.

Nearly 800,000 Dreamers have participated in the DACA program, of the estimated 1.3 million who were eligible. As a group, they have had a large and positive economic impact. Recent research by New American Economy indicates that the DACA-eligible population earns $19.9 billion in income each year and is more likely to be an entrepreneur than U.S.-born workers of the equivalent age.[1]

Yet, there is another, less appreciated, way that Dreamers could contribute to the United States: by helping to strengthen and fill gaps in our military ranks. We explore this issue in depth in this brief.

As has been widely reported, the military is currently struggling to find enough recruits fluent in some strategically important languages. The armed forces also have a need for more workers trained in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (or STEM) fields, as well as certain healthcare professions. Using the criteria that makes an immigrant eligible for Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest—a program that allows temporary residents with skills in certain shortage areas to join the military—this report examines how the DACA-eligible population could help meet the country’s unique defense needs. We find that a substantial portion of the DACA-eligible population has language or workforce training that could help address the military’s recruitment challenges. Current policy however, makes it highly difficult for such individuals to enlist.[2] And if the DACA program is allowed to expire in early 2018 as is currently planned, joining will soon become impossible.

Key Findings

• More than one out of every seven members of the DACA-eligible population has language skills that are currently in short supply in the U.S. military. The U.S. military has identified more than three dozen languages for which they routinely have trouble finding enough speakers to meet current recruitment needs. More than 169,000 DACA-eligible individuals ages 18 and above—or 14.6 percent—speak one of those languages routinely at home.
• A healthy number of DACA-eligible individuals of recruitment age have either healthcare or STEM training. Almost 42,000 people who are DACA eligible have worked in healthcare in the last five years—including more than 19,000 who have worked as either medical practitioners or technicians. Additionally, roughly 27,000 have held science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) positions. The U.S. armed forces routinely face challenges recruiting individuals with these skill sets.
• The language skills of the DACA population would be relevant to a wide range of global missions. Almost 28,000 Dreamers speak Korean at home, while more than 9,000 speak Russian—both languages identified as posing recruitment challenges. There is also a substantial portion of the Dreamer population that speaks one or more languages relevant to the country’s ongoing military engagements: Almost 12,000 DACA-eligible immigrants speak Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, or Farsi at home.

The fate of the Dreamer population in America is more tenuous today than at any other time in DACA’s history. After roughly 800,000 undocumented young people applied for and received status through the DACA program—submitting identifying information to the U.S. government—Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced that the administration would be phasing out the program altogether. The Department of Homeland Security has since stopped accepting applications from new potential DACA recipients and put stricter deadlines on near-term renewals. DACA recipients who would be eligible to renew before March 5, 2018 were given one month to renew their status, but no new renewals will be allowed after that point. All this comes on top of reports that have proliferated in recent months about DACA recipients who have been detained, and in some cases, even deported.[3]

Despite these threats to Dreamers, it has become clear in recent months that there is a strong bipartisan coalition in Congress that realizes the unique benefits that protecting the Dreamers can bring. Even before the administration announced it was phasing out the DACA program, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois had introduced the Dream Act, a bill that would give some members of the DACA-eligible population protection from deportation and a pathway to citizenship if they meet criteria like graduating high school and passing a background check.[4] And in the House, Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo has been able to find 30 Republican co-sponsors for his Recognizing America’s Children, or RAC, Act, a more conservative measure that allows certain Dreamers to hold a five-year provisional status if they maintain a full-time job, join the military, or enroll in higher education—with green cards available only later.[5] In the days since the attorney general’s announcement, numerous political leaders—from House Speaker Paul Ryan to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—have spoken out in favor of protecting the Dreamers, allowing both measures to pick up additional support.[6]

Although a wider solution to the Dreamer issue is clearly warranted, it is worth noting that the basic principle of awarding Dreamers who enlist in our armed forces legal status is particularly uncontroversial. Earlier this year, Republican Rep. Jeff Denham introduced the ENLIST Act, a targeted measure that grants green cards to Dreamers who opt to pursue military service. That bill quickly gathered more than 200 bipartisan co-sponsors, making it one of the most broadly supported bills of this Congress.[7]

The issue of what to do with undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children is one that has vexed political leaders for the last decade. However, recent polls have found that eligible voters from both parties largely are in favor of allowing Dreamers to remain in the country long term.[8] And there is good reason why. As this report shows, the benefits of embracing the Dream Act, the RAC Act, or the ENLIST Act go beyond it being the right thing to do or a potential boon to our economy, although there are good arguments to be made for both. Doing so would produce less appreciated benefits as well, including the potential strengthening of our defensive capabilities and national security. This is particularly important in an era when the United States is engaged in military operations and intelligence gathering in dangerous pockets of the world such as Syria and North Korea.

Part I: Background

Noncitizens have served in the U.S. armed forces since the Revolutionary War. Even today, immigrants remain an integral part of our military. Roughly 65,000 immigrants served in the U.S. armed forces in 2013, and the average number of noncitizens on active duty from 2010 to 2016 was 18,700. These immigrants come from a variety of different cultures but share a motivation to serve their country. The DACA-eligible population, which includes the 1.9 million undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, is no different. In FY 2016, 359 DACA recipients, also referred to as Dreamers, enlisted in the U.S. Army. These individuals were granted a waiver to enlist on a case-by-case basis, only if they met the requirements of the MAVNI program, an initiative that allowed noncitizens with critical skills that were in short supply among U.S. citizens to enlist. The MAVNI program, however, was closed to new applicants in the summer of 2016, effectively shutting the DACA population out of future military service altogether.

In this brief, we examine the demographic background of the DACA-eligible population. Looking solely at their language skills and training in STEM and healthcare fields makes it clear they have valuable—and needed—skills to offer to the U.S. armed forces. However, the DACA-eligible population is currently off-limits to recruiters, closing a career path that many of these young people, raised in America, are eager to pursue. One example from Phoenix, Arizona encapsulates this frustrating situation.

Oscar Vazquez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, attempted to enlist in the U.S. military after graduating from high school in Phoenix. Vazquez had been in Junior ROTC in high school, and was named the JROTC Officer of the Year. He gained fame as a member of the Carl Hayden High School team that won a collegiate robot competition featured in the documentary movie Underwater Dreams and a fictionalized version, the 2015 film Spare Parts. Vazquez’s ill-funded team, made up entirely of undocumented immigrants, beat the nation’s best college teams, including a group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite Vazquez’s academic achievements, JROTC participation, and obvious propensity to serve in the military, he was turned down by military recruiters because of his lack of immigration papers. After graduating from high school, Vazquez enrolled at Arizona State University. Eventually, he married a U.S. citizen—but this marriage did not immediately result in lawful status, due to complicated U.S. immigration laws that prevent unauthorized immigrants like Vazquez from obtaining lawful permanent residence even if they are married to U.S. citizens. Vazquez was eventually able to obtain a green card, but not without great difficulty, time, and expense—and the intervention of a U.S. Senator, who was able to get immigration authorities to reverse their initial denial of his request for an immigrant visa.  After obtaining a green card through his marriage, Vazquez immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army—some seven years after he had originally sought to enlist during high school. Vazquez went on to complete his enlistment successfully, and served with distinction as a cavalry scout during a combat tour in Afghanistan. And yet complicated U.S. immigration laws deprived the U.S. Army of the benefits of Vazquez’s service for a full seven-year period. Other members of his high school team have still not obtained any legal status that would allow them to enlist.

Anecdotally, many Dreamers like Vazquez wish to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Although they likely have much to offer, in this brief, we examine whether they have a set of narrowly defined skills of particular interest to the U.S. military. Our analysis makes use of data from the American Community Survey’s 2013 to 2015 sample. Using a methodology developed by New American Economy, we identify the DACA-eligible population in the U.S. Census—a group that is almost twice as large as the number of people who have formally applied for and received DACA status. We then compare the skills of this group to the recruitment needs the military once sought to fill through the MAVNI program. Although MAVNI hardly represents the full extent of the military’s recruitment challenges, it remains one of our best gauges of the most acutely needed skills.

Part II: Language Skills

With U.S. military personnel deployed in over 150 countries and 300,000 active duty personnel outside the U.S. states and territories, cultural and linguistic diversity is key to the success of the U.S. armed forces. Recent studies have focused on how the successful cultural integration of the U.S. armed forces in areas of conflict, such as the Middle East, contributes to their ability to defeat adversaries and work with allies in the region.[9] According to a report by the Department of Defense, cross-cultural competence (3C) has been a priority from 2005 to present.[10] In 2012, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno stressed the importance of cross-cultural competence, stating, “The best-equipped Army in the world can still lose a war if it doesn’t understand the people it’s fighting.”[11]

This need for additional linguistic skills was never clearer than in the events that preceded the 9/11 attacks. According to a book on the topic, the message dictating the plan to carry out 9/11 was intercepted by U.S. intelligence on September 10th, but due to the lack of translators the message was not interpreted until after the attack had been carried out.[12] In the aftermath of 9/11, leaders from the military and intelligence services have often discussed the growing need for interpreters and translators. And Military.com, one of the largest sites covering news relevant to the armed forces, frequently highlights how translators are in particularly “high demand” among recruiters.[13] In 2002, the military reported that it could find only 42 of the 84 Arabic linguists it required.[14] Eight years later, the situation had not improved. In 2010, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that the personnel capable of reading and speaking the languages used in war-torn regions, such as the Middle East, remain “essentially non-existent.”[15] The military has continuously struggled to fill translator roles with people who are qualified and have the necessary security clearance to be part of the military linguistics team, and the shortage still prevails. In March 2017, the Department of Defense paid almost $9.9 billion to agencies to provide language services to the Army for the next 10 years.[16] The Department of Defense has paid a huge sum of money for a temporary fix.

The DACA-eligible population present in the United States has skills that could be of use in addressing the military’s language problem. The DACA population is still commonly misperceived as being ethnically homogenous; however, the population in fact is quite diverse, with large numbers of individuals from Asia.[17] When devising the MAVNI program, the military identified 45 languages as vital to military success but in short supply among U.S.-born recruits. More than 169,000 members of the DACA-eligible population—or more than one in seven of them—speak one of these languages at home, an indicator of fluency. (See Figure 1.) Languages on the MAVNI list that are widely spoken by the DACA-eligible population include Korean, which is spoken by almost 28,000 people, as well as Tagalog, which has 22,000 speakers. Chinese (Mandarin), Portuguese, and French/Haitian Creole also boast more than 10,000 speakers each.

*Note: Figures above represent those aged 18 and above only.
Source: Author’s analysis of the American Community Survey, 2013-2015 sample.

Source: Author’s Analysis of American Community Survey Data, 2013-2015

As Figure 2 shows, many members of the DACA-eligible population speak languages of particular strategic importance to the military. For instance, in recent months, the U.S. government has placed sanctions on Russia, North Korea, and Iran. With tensions rising between these three countries and the United States, the military needs fluent language speakers to navigate any future communications with these countries or intercept intelligence. There are almost 28,000 native Korean, 9,000 Russian, and 2,000 Farsi speakers in the DACA-eligible population. There is a strategic advantage to having these people serve in the military, as they will have cultural and linguistic expertise which could be of critical importance. Furthermore, the Department of Defense has also identified a variety of languages from the growing economies of China, Brazil, and India as of key strategic importance. In addition to the Mandarin and Portuguese figures already listed, our analysis shows that there are 5,800 Hindi speakers in the DACA-eligible population. The population also includes more than 2,700 Cantonese, 1,900 Bengali, and 1,700 Punjabi speakers.

Beyond this, the military is currently engaged in Middle Eastern countries such as Syria and Iraq. It would be of great strategic advantage for the military to be able to recruit some of the 4,500 Arabic speakers in the DACA-eligible population to their ranks. Furthermore, ongoing anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan require the military to engage with these countries and their populations. The 7,400 Urdu, Pashto, and Farsi (Dari) speakers in the DACA-eligible population could help meet this need, if interested and allowed to enlist.

It is important to note that without access to native speakers, the military is often forced to train linguists to meet its language needs, often at great expense. The U.S. Army, for instance, frequently relies on contractors or graduates of the Defense Language Institute (DLI) to meet the Army’s needs for foreign language expertise. When MAVNI soldiers were still actively joining the military ranks, the Army was able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracting and training expenses, and obtain higher levels of foreign language expertise. Comparing the test results of DLI graduates to the expertise of MAVNI soldiers made this particularly clear: Most DLI-trained linguists, after about 64 weeks of intensive language training, scored at the 1+ or 2 level on the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), a level of knowledge that is not enough for the linguist to function effectively as an interpreter on the battlefield. MAVNI soldiers, on the other hand, often scored at level 3 on the OPI, which represented native level fluency.[18] Because DACA-eligible recruits are also native speakers, similar results could be reasonably expected.

Part III: Healthcare Training

With forces deployed in war-torn areas and soldiers in the line of fire in many different parts of the world, the military’s efficiency is extremely dependent on access to medical care. Healthcare practitioners provide care to veterans and active-duty officers at home and abroad. The U.S. Army has one of the most extensive healthcare networks in the world, with healthcare provided in more than 70 military facilities around the world.[19] This extensive coverage, however, can only be sustained with a robust supply of healthcare professionals. In recent years finding this supply has been challenging. The number of medical personnel in the U.S. armed forces fell sharply in 2004 during the Iraq War. In 2006, the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy experienced overall nurse vacancy rates of 15 percent, 8 percent, and 9.6 percent, respectively.[20] A decade later the situation has not improved, with military websites listing medical professionals as in “high demand” while nurses are still listed as an “urgent hiring need.”[21]

In November 2016, the Department of Defense produced a report on healthcare appointments in the Military Health System.[22] The report notes that there was an increase in the turnover rate of Clinical Psychologists and Licensed Vocational Nurses from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2016. Additionally, the report acknowledges that the “services anticipate recruitment and retention challenges with a number of specific healthcare specialties” in the coming years.[23] It further details that the “Air Force expects an increased need for Family Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Pharmacists, Physical Therapists, Nurses, and Medical Coders,” while the “Army’s chief needs are for Clinical Psychologists.” The Navy was said to need Child Psychologists, Occupational and Physical Therapists, Industrial Hygienists, and Speech Pathologists as well.[24] Furthermore, the report highlights that there are not enough medical personnel to fulfil these requirements as the “Air Force and the NCRMD, in particular, have observed that the need for healthcare providers and staff across the nation is increasing as the population ages, while the number of people entering healthcare occupations is not increasing sufficiently to meet the expected demand.”[25]

Although they certainly would come nowhere close to meeting the full demand, our analysis shows that the DACA-eligible population could play a role in helping to mitigate some of these medical personnel shortages. We find that more than 19,000 DACA-eligible people, ages 18 and above, have worked within the last five years as either healthcare practitioners or technical specialists. That group includes those who have worked as physicians, surgeons, and registered nurses. Additionally, in the last five years more than 22,600 DACA-eligible individuals have held a healthcare support role—a broad category including physical therapist assistants, home health aides, and medical assistants. (See Figure 3.)

Source: Author’s Analysis of American Community Survey Data, 2013-2015

Part IV: Training in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

In recent years, the military has also struggled to find enough recruits trained in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (or STEM) fields. Such recruits, who work as everything from engineers designing bases and roads for transport to lab technicians studying chemical weaponry, are of critical strategic importance. In 2012, a study from the National Research Council reported that U.S. national security could be threatened by the lack of STEM field workers.[26] Following this report, the Department of Defense, acting on recommendations from the Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) of the National Science and Technology Council, implemented a strategic plan which will run from FY 2016 to FY 2020.[27] This strategic plan is premised on the prediction that the demand of STEM workers will exceed the supply in the next decade, which will negatively affect the competitive edge of the Department of Defense. The military has already listed STEM majors as in high demand, and there are signs the situation is worsening. For that reason, in recent years the Department of Defense has been investing some of its resources in high school students, aiming to encourage more to pursue STEM majors so they can fulfil potential gaps in the military in the future.

However, our research shows that the U.S. military is already unable to access one crucial source of potential recruits: the portion of the DACA-eligible population that already has STEM experience. Our analysis shows that there are 27,000 DACA-eligible people, ages 18 and above, who have held a STEM position within the last five years. (See Figure 4.) Although sample size does not allow us to drill down further to identify their specific occupations, this group represents individuals who could potentially serve without any major further expenditures on their training. Beyond that, an additional, 83 percent of the DACA-eligible population, ages 18 and above, have already graduated high school. In most cases, having a high school degree or GED is required to enlist.

Source: Author’s Analysis of American Community Survey Data, 2013-2015

Part V: Conclusion

This brief demonstrates how the DACA-eligible population, a group that faces major barriers to enlisting in our military, has valuable skills to contribute to U.S. national security. Our analysis of U.S. Census data shows that 42,000 people from the DACA-eligible population could potentially fill healthcare specialist roles, while 27,000 have STEM training. Additionally, roughly one out of every seven of these Dreamers speaks a language of strategic importance to the military that is currently in short supply among U.S.-born recruits. If the military were allowed to widely enlist DACA recipients in its ranks, it would clearly have a highly qualified pool from which to recruit.

The findings of this brief also provide evidence of the importance of the ENLIST Act, a bill that has strong support in the current U.S. Congress. Introduced by Rep. Denham, the ENLIST Act allows qualified undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children to enlist in the U.S. military and gain legal status upon completion of their service. Other more comprehensive bills—including the RAC Act in the House or the bipartisan Dream Act in the Senate—would achieve the same end, while also creating a path to citizenship for Dreamers who pursue higher education or hold jobs in our workforce. With the DACA program winding down and slated to expire in March, Congress should pass such legislation without delay.

In recent years, the U.S. military has faced some major challenges. The long-running conflict in Afghanistan—as well as the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria—has made language and cultural competence in some ways more important than ever. The many skills that the DACA-eligible population has that could be useful to our military efforts should clearly be one factor that comes into consideration as members of Congress debate the way forward for the country’s 1.9 million Dreamers. Passing a bill to protect these American-raised young people—and reward them for their service and sacrifice—is not only the right thing to do, but also a step toward strengthening our long-term national security.

Methodology

This report uses data from the 2013 to 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) to identify potential DACA-eligible persons. Due to the small sample size of the DACA-eligible population in one-year ACS data, we pool the 2013, 2014, and 2015 data and used the average weight from each year to arrive at the final weighted estimates.

To start, we use a similar approach that our previous work has employed to identify undocumented immigrants from the Census microdata. This approach is outlined by Harvard University economist George Borjas in his studies on the undocumented population. Because DACA recipients are legally allowed to work in certain occupations that undocumented immigrants cannot work in, we adjust the methodology to reflect such differences between undocumented immigrants and the DACA-eligible population.

To determine whether a person in the microdata has legal status in the United States or not, foreign-born individuals who reported naturalization are reclassified as non-naturalized if the individual had resided in the United States for less than six years or, if married to a U.S. citizen, for less than three years. After, we use the following criteria to code foreign-born individuals as legal U.S. residents:

• Arrived in the United States before 1980;
• Citizens and children less than 18 years old reporting at least one U.S.-born parent;
• Spouses of natural born citizens, or naturalized citizens who have resided in the United States for six years or more;
• Recipients of Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, Medicare, or public assistance;
• Households with at least one citizen that received SNAP benefits;
• Refugees; or
• Federal government employees or law enforcement officers.

The remainder of the foreign-born population that do not meet these criteria are reclassified as undocumented. Since DACA-eligible population is a subset of the total undocumented population, we then apply the guidelines for DACA from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to ACS microdata. We determine an undocumented person is DACA-eligible if the individual:

• Was born after the second quarter of 1981;
• Came to the United States before reaching his/her 16th birthday;
• Has moved to the United States by 2007; and
• Is currently in school, has a high school degree, or has a general education development (GED) certificate.

While USCIS guidelines for DACA application also include restrictions on those who have criminal records, it is not possible to determine such information from the Census. Our final numbers of the DACA-eligible population are the best reliable estimates that one can extrapolate from the Census microdata. After identifying DACA-eligible persons in ACS, we then use the data to obtain information on the languages that they speak at home and their occupations.

[1] “Spotlight on the DACA-Eligible Population,” New American Economy, September 1, 2017, http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/research/spotlight-on-the-daca-eligible-population/.

[2] Previously DACA recipients were considered for the MAVNI program for admission to the U.S. Army on a case-by-case basis. Suspension of that program, however, has closed even that limited path to entry.

[3] Adam Kelsey, Geneva Sands, and Jack Date, “Dreamer Deported as Homeland Security Disputes Circumstances,” ABC News, April 19, 2017, http://abcnews.go.com/US/time-daca-recipient-deported-homeland-security-disputes-status/story?id=46875886.

[4] William Menard, “Senate Introduces Pathway to Citizenship for Dreamers, Potentially Altering a Generation,” JDSupra, July 24, 2017, http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/senate-introduces-pathway-to-68892/.

[5] Dara Lind, “The 3 Bills Congress Could Use to Protect DACA Recipients,” Vox, September 5, 2017, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/5/16256376/dream-act-rac-daca-bridge.

[6] Bob Fredericks, “Paul Ryan: ‘Not in Our Nation’s Interest’ to Kick out Dreamers,” New York Post, September 13, 2017, http://nypost.com/2017/09/13/paul-ryan-not-in-our-nations-interest-to-kick-out-dreamers/; Burgess Everett et al., “Trump, Democrats Confirm Outline of DACA Deal, despite Denials,” Politico, September 14, 2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/13/dreamers-trump-democratic-leaders-242698.

[7] “Rep. Denham’s ENLIST Act Reaches 200 Co-Sponsors,” Press Releases of U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham, May 11, 2017, https://denham.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1815.

[8] “National Tracking Poll #170409” (Morning Consult and Politico, April 24, 2017), https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/170409_crosstabs_Politico_v1_AG-2.pdf.

[9] Wunderle William D., “Throught the Lens of Cultural Awareness: A Primer for US Armed Forces Deploying to Arab and Middle Eastern Countries,” Armypress, accessed August 7, 2017, http://armypress.dodlive.mil/files/2016/11/Through-the-lens.pdf.

[10] “Cross-Cultural Competence in the Department of Defense: An Annotated Bibliography” (U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, April 2014), http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA599260.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Nathaniel Frank, “‘Unfriendly Fire,’ by Nathaniel Frank,” The New York Times, March 18, 2009, sec. Books, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/books/chapters/chapter-unfriendly-fire.html.

[13] “Joining the Military,” Military.com, accessed August 7, 2017, http://www.military.com/Recruiting/Content/0,13898,082707_Translators_in_high_demand.htm.

[14] Frank, “‘Unfriendly Fire,’ by Nathaniel Frank.”

[15] Rowan Scarborough, “EXCLUSIVE: Lack of Translators Hurts U.S. War on Terror,” The Washington Times, August 2009, //www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/31/lack-of-translators-still-hampers-intelligence/.

[16] Marion Marking, “US Army Awards USD 10 Billion Language Services Contract,” Slator, March 7, 2017, https://slator.com/deal-wins/us-army-awards-usd-10-billion-language-services-contract/.

[17] “Largest U.S. Immigrant Groups over Time, 1960-Present,” Migration Policy Institute, October 2, 2013, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/largest-immigrant-groups-over-time.

[18] From 2008-2010, not a single DLI graduate attained a score of 3 on the OPI in Arabic, even after intermediate and advanced training in Arabic. The majority of DLI Arabic graduates scored 1+ or lower at the completion of more than a year of intensive language training.

[19] “In-Demand Civilian Jobs,” U.S. Army, n.d., http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/army-civilian-careers/in-demand-civilian-jobs.html.

[20] American Association of Colleges of Nursing, “Reverse the Military and Civilian Nurse Shortage: Support the Troops to Nurse Teachers (TNT) Act of 2008 (S. 2705 and H.R. 5878),” accessed August 7, 2017, http://www.aacn.nche.edu/government-affairs/archives/2008/08TNT_FS.pdf.

[21] “In-Demand Civilian Jobs.”

[22] Department of Defense, “2016 REPORT TO CONGRESS DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HEALTH CARE PROVIDER APPOINTMENT AND COMPENSATION AUTHORITIES,” 2016.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] “Report of a Workshop on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce Needs for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base” at NAP.edu (The National Academies Press, n.d.), doi:10.17226/13318.

[27] Department of Defense, “Department of Defense STEM, Strategic Plan Fy2016-Fy2020,” Department of Defense STEM, accessed August 7, 2017, http://www.acq.osd.mil/rd/publications/docs/DoD_STEM_Strategic_Plan_2015_1022_final.pdf.