Just saw this on Twitter:
Ilhan Omar has been raising the issue of dual loyalty with Israel, but of course, the US doesn't have a border with Israel, and there are lot of Mexicans. The Mexican soldiers you see above are in the American army, as you can see by the very small American flags on their right shoulders.
While it's considered outrageous to refer to a Mexican-American as a Mexican (see the case of Judge Curiel, who we heard over and over was "born in Indiana") some of these guys may be actual citizens of Mexico—the Army recruits immigrants who haven't achieved citizenship yet. (You need to be a citizen to be an officer.)
However, whether it's true or not that the air of Indiana is too pure to allow a Mexican to be born there, it's clear that these guys think they're Mexicans.
In 2003, I quoted Mickey Kaus, who was blogging at the time for Slate:
The Washington Post again raises an outrageous charge of dual loyalties!
"For many of those [Mexican-American] troops, serving in the U.S. military is a source of pride, but also of deep personal conflict. They wrestle with the weight of culture and a tradition in which Mexican nationalism has long been measured by opposition to its powerful northern neighbor. Mexican public opinion is overwhelmingly against a war with Iraq. President Vicente Fox has said Mexico, which holds a seat on the U.N. Security Council, will oppose unilateral U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein. In a country with a deep reluctance to get involved in conflicts outside its borders, the antiwar sentiment is raw and passionate."[Fighting 'Their War' For Soldiers With Mexican Roots, A Struggle of Pride vs. Heritage, By Mary Jordan, March 1, 2003]
This is Kaus's little joke, he was arguing at the time against a guy named Lawrence Kaplan, who tried to suppress anti-Iraq War talk by calling it anti-semitic. But Kaus is serious about immigration, and the dual loyalty of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the US Army and in the Border Patrol is a very serious problem.
