On November 5, 2009, Army Major Nidal Hasan walked into a building on Fort Hood, Texas, shouted the classic jihadist term ‘Allahu Akbar’' and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 42 others. The Army psychiatrist had been openly communicating with terrorists abroad, and typical of these post-9/11 cases, not surprisingly the FBI already had his emails in their possession and the Army security, intelligence, counterterrorism and counterintelligence apparatus had failed to do its job.
Though Hasan was an American citizen born in Arlington, Virginia, his shooting spree resulted in a secret Army program – codenamed Torr Vigil – to specifically snoop into the views and backgrounds of thousands of Muslims and foreigners serving in the military. To put this into perspective, consider this: between 2001 and today, almost 150,000 young men and women obtained citizenship by serving in the armed forces.
Various programs exist to attract recruits with the promise of citizenship, particularly in medical and technical fields. The program got a boost after 9/11 when the military became desperate for native speakers of Arabic and Dari. On and off-the-books, foreign born recruits were sought. Some were citizens, others were green card holders (lawful permanent residents), but there was also programs for other foreign nationals who were neither citizens or green card holders to serve, particularly to serve in intelligence and special operations positions.
In 2009, the same year of the Hasan killings, the Pentagon created the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program to enlist non-immigrant foreign nationals who had certain culture and language skills that were considered ‘vital to the national interest of the United States.’ The incentive for individuals to serve was that after honorable service, they became eligible to naturalize. The Pentagon says that over 10,400 people took part in the MAVNI program. For every one of them, the Army’s Torr Vigil Analytical Support Element (TVASE) scoured public and classified records looking for links to terrorist organizations and, increasingly, to foreign intelligence services.
After the Fort Hood shootings, the program was halted temporarily by the Obama Administration, despite Hasan not being related to MAVNI in any way. The MAVNI program was eventually reinstated in 2012, but then suspended in 2016 due to “security concerns.”
The Trump administration then permanently froze the program. More than 500 foreign recruits were discharged without explanation, and another 4,000 were left in limbo, either assigned to reserve units or waiting for background checks to be cleared. The result was people falling out falling out of legal status even though they were told that they would be admitted. Others were unable to work legally.
But they had all signed contracts with the military and in September 2020, a district court judge determined the limbo violated immigration law, ordered the military to resume processing. When the Biden administration took office, it worked to rectify the situation. The MAVNI group stuck in this limbo was designated Calixto class members, and again provided the opportunity to naturalize. USCIS reports more than 6,000 pending military naturalization applications as of early 2022.
So follow the plotline: Unaware and surprised, the military finds itself in foreign lands it doesn’t understand. It searches for people who speak the language to help. Struggling with xenophobia and anti-Muslim biases, the military double checks on those that it has recruited. Recruitments plummeting because Americans don’t want to serve in the military, foreign nationals become even more needed to fill the ranks. The war on terrorism “ends” (or more precisely, it looses its prestige). New linguists are needed to help in Africa (the new military playground) and against China. The Torr Vigil apparatus stays busy conducting their investigations. Antagonisms and vulnerabilities grow because of U.S. bumbling around the world. More terrorist attacks occur. The military scrambles to find new recruits.
Doubt that new vulnerabilities grow? Consider the case of Ji Chaoqun, an electrical engineering graduate from the Illinois Institute of Technology who arrived in the U.S. in 2013 on a student visa and applied to join the Army Reserves under MAVNI in 2016 to obtain U.S. citizenship. Accepted into the MAVNI program after Torr Vigil scrutiny and then further investigated to obtain a Top Secret clearance, Ji was spying for China. In late 2017, an FBI counterintelligence investigation on another individual uncovered communications between two Chinese Ministry of State Security intelligence officers and Ji. In his application to participate in the MAVNI program, the FBI subsequently found that Ji falsely stated to the Army that he had not had contact with a foreign government and he lied about his relationship and contacts with Chinese intelligence when interviewed. In September, he was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government; one count of acting as an agent; and one count of making a material false statement. So much for the success of the Torr Vigil program.
There is no question that MAVNIs and other native-born personnel enhance the ability of units to operate overseas. And the military has a tradition of attracting immigrants to serve (and be granted citizenship). Over time, MAVNIs and other language and cultural specialists have served as interpreters on the battlefield, processed intercepts, and served as intelligence teachers and role players. Others were procured for the CIA and other agencies to do even more secret work, and MAVNIs continue to serve as a language capable pool when short-term operations emerged.
Pentagon numbers estimate that some 40,000 non-citizens are serving in the military, about two-thirds on active duty. Given the bonuses of up to $50,000 are being offered to young men and women to join the military because the services (particularly the Army) can’t reach their recruiting goals, one wonders at what point this entire class of recruits, foreigners and U.S. citizens alike, can be called mercenaries, that is, that they fight for money and benefits. Regardless, some experts say that the MAVNIs and other foreign nationals are actually more intent on being good Americans and love what America has to offer than those citizens who enlist because they are attracted by the money. Or alternatively, none of these enlistees believe that the American military is serving a patriotic mission any more, except rhetorically; that it is just another federal program to exploit. Meanwhile, Torr Vigil hum along, itself a bonus baby of the crisis in patriotism.