Was Obama planning on using the DREAM Act to offset losses from the DADT repeal?

This sound totally reasonable. There is no doubt many of the men and women now serving in the military will elect to leave rather than reenlist. Enlistments will most likely slow too as our young men and women who prefer to avoid the gays and lesbians decide not to serve in the military. It is expected we will see a shortage of enlistments and reenlistment's.

Although the military already has provisions allowing illegal aliens to serve in the military pushing these two issues at the same time gives credibility to the idea that passing the Dream act would bring more illegal aliens into the service offsetting the losses from repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies.

We are already seeing veterans saying they will no longer encourage relatives and friends to enlist in the military. Those who served proudly before are now stunned with the repeal of the policies. As they point out; the service was working okay in part because of the policies and although it may not make a difference to many there are a lot who will be negatively effected by the decision. There was a lot that went unreported dealing with gays in the service and it is expected it will get worse now that the gays will be easier to identify.

Nobody wants the Dream Act to pass. Illegals do not respect the law or for some reason think the law doesn't apply to them. DADT repeal passed this time because there was no amnesty bill attached to it. Passing the Dream Act is an attempt by racist illegal immigrant supporters to say it is okay for SOME people to not follow the law. It's ridiculous.

no, not at all. the DREAM act is for disallowing illegal immigrants to totally benefit from our public services without returning anything. It's actually brilliant legislation. The DADT repeal will actually not have too much of an impact on the actual effectiveness of the armed forces (the Pentagon's report). Also i believe that the 5% of America that is homosexual will be more encouraged to join the military, offsetting the number of bigots leaving.

Actually, you got it wrong. The Dream Act did not get passed.

They may be concerned about getting enough people for the services should Korea heat up. They got gays who may join up a lot more if they can be openly gay in the service and not have to worry about getting kicked out if they get caught. They got illegals who grew up in the USA who actually can speak English. So they look at the two groups and decide they would rather have American born gays than foreign born illegals, even if the illegals can speak English.

So they rejected the Dream Act and went with repealing DADT. They get the additional troops they need without having to take foreigners. After all, we are not French and do not want a Foreign Legion.

please. there will not be a mass exodous just because DADT was repealed. all these people still have to complete their contracts they cannot just walk away.

and 2/3 of those illegals won't even meet the minimum requirements to enlist anyway.

I think you need to get your facts straight, the DREAM act and DADT repeal have no correlation whatsoever, they're are both actions of the Obama administration, that is the only thing they have in common.

yeah, push more minorities into the military especially ones with language issues. I have had some English challenged Hispanics and it is easy to get in trouble trying to help them succeed because they want it handed to them, no earned. They force us to have double standards and they is just going to so much more of that that we will never retain the actual soldiers, sailors, and airmen that produce the missions.

Old Guy

Ret. USAF SNCO