At the end of his immigration speech on May 15, the President shared a Reaganesque anecdote about being present at the naturalization of a Marine Sargeant, Guadulupe Denogean, who had come to the United States from Mexico. He didn't mention the fact that Denogean was naturalized in April of 2003 nor did he mention the fact that Denogean was one of two military men in Bethesda who were naturalized that day. The other was OJ Santamaria, a native of the Phillipines.

The Denogean story is significant because it reveals some of the very slippery ground in what amounts to our cultural borderline personality disorder. Both the President and the news stories were pointedly vague about what Denogean's precise immigration status was when his family came to pick crops in Arizona when he was a child. (to be clear, I have no idea what it was) For purposes of the 2006 speech, the President rather slyly implied that Denogean's family had been illegal at some point. As Balidilocks points out, it would be somewhat odd in a speech on "illegal" immigration to be touting a citizenship ceremony for a "legal" resident.

After all, no credible person has argued that "legal" immigrants pose any sort of problems. Some, however, have pointed out that the all the 9/11 highjackers entered the U.S. legally or at least had papers.

Let's just say that Denogean's family happened to be illegal at some point. Certainly, he was far too young when they came here to bear any responsibility for having broken American law as opposed to say the moral law of trying to feed one's family. If you read the Marine Corps press release from 2003, you'll see that the Sargeant dropped out of high school at age 17 to join the Marines and served in the Corps for some 26 years before becoming a citizen after having been wounded in his second conflict as a U.S. Marine.

In his words, "It was a better life than continuing to work in the fields like his parents had to."

In any case, I have no problem at all with granting Denogean citizenship regardless of what turns up about the legality of his family's immigration status. I certainly have less problem with any illegals who might be serving than I do with Jonah Goldberg not serving.

At the same time, what a subtle and brilliant plan on the President's part! Instead of rounding up thousands of illegal immigrants and arresting them or sending them back to their native countries, why not just draft them? There've been some problems with recruitment quotas in the last year. After all, most point out that illegal workers already do jobs that not enough Americans care to do.