A military recruiter in Minnesota, pointing to fears over the ongoing ICE operations in Minneapolis, promoted joining the National Guard to high school students highlighting a program that may provide the fast household of service members some safety towards deportation.
The e-mail, despatched final week with the topic line “I know [it] is scary out there,” immediately addressed ICE detentions.
“All of you have heard about how ICE and how they are taking people without any consideration. … If you are born here and you are 17yrs old, and in a position, like many, where your parents may not be documented. They need you to help!” the e-mail stated.
The e-mail pointed to the Parole in Place, or PIP, a program that’s run via US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The program shouldn’t be essentially assured; it affords dad and mom, spouses, and youngsters of service members safety from deportation on a case-by-case foundation, in one-year increments, the USCIS web site says. As of fiscal 12 months 2025 it took a mean of 4.5 months to course of Parole in Place requests.
Tensions have flared in Minneapolis in current weeks as protestors have confronted off with federal regulation enforcement amid an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, significantly after the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good earlier this month.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated Monday that greater than 10,000 “criminal illegal aliens” have been arrested in Minneapolis, although NCS couldn’t independently confirm that quantity.
One supply aware of the recruiting e-mail instructed NCS it was despatched to roughly 200 students at not less than one high school in the Minneapolis space. The e-mail instantly triggered confusion and concern amongst the students who acquired it, the supply stated.
NCS tried to contact the recruiter who despatched the e-mail, however didn’t obtain a response.
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a Minnesota National Guard spokesperson, acknowledged the e-mail including that PIP can’t be used till after somebody enlists and whereas the military “may assist with the process … it is driven by the service member and often requires a lawyer.”
“There was no command directive to share information about Parole in Place, but recruiters often do share information about programs that individuals are eligible for either during the recruiting process or after enlistment,” Tsuchiya stated.
The Pentagon referred questions on Parole in Place to USCIS. USCIS didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
There have beforehand been issues in the military about selling the program, given the Defense Department doesn’t have management over who’s admitted or accredited. The Marine Corps, for instance, instructed recruiters final 12 months to cease selling the program or “imply that the Marine Corps can secure immigration relief for applicants or their families,” a Marine Corps spokesperson beforehand told Military.com.
Recruiters typically level potential recruits to packages and advantages that would make a distinction to them individually throughout conversations about joining the military. One recruiter aware of the Parole in Place program, nonetheless, instructed NCS it might be more practical for a recruiter to communicate with school officers about the program earlier than going immediately to the students.
“The problem is the recruiter leads his email with the threat of ICE taking people ‘without any consideration,’” the recruiter who spoke to NCS stated. “He then goes on to explain it’s basically the student’s job to protect their parents by enlisting. That’s intimidating, it’s predatory, and in my opinion an unethical way to do business in schools and with community partners.”
The higher path, the recruiter stated, would have been for the Minnesota recruiter to “drop off some literature and educate” school officers and companions on the packages, and permitting them to join students to the recruiter if it’s of curiosity.