Why Would Anyone Join the Service Now?

It's at best a rock and inconsistent path to citizenship.

Author

mister mix
August 22, 2025

A Pakistan-born US army veteran, and husband of a former Washington congressional candidate, was taken into ICE detention during a citizenship interview on Thursday at the United States Citizen and Immigration Services office in Tukwila, Washington, according to the local chapter of CAIR, a national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

Public records show he is currently in ICE custody at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, or “Zahid” to those who know him, is originally from Pakistan. He is married to Melissa Chaudhry, a US citizen who ran against Washington Congressman (D-9) Adam Smith last year (The Stranger endorsed Chaudhry in that race). They have two children together.

[…]

Zahid has lived in the US for 25 years and is a member of the Olympia chapter of Veterans for Peace. Zahid came to the country legally and served in the US military, but has faced the threat of deportation to Pakistan for years. 

Zahid pled guilty to fraud in Australia in 2001, then served in the US Army and was discharged after a training injury in 2003.

It’s smart for a country to have a path to citizenship via the military. But the dummies in charge of ICE have set forth quotas, and even the tiniest, oldest infraction will lead to arrests in an attempt to meet those quotas.

If you serve in the military in order to become a citizen, any excuse will be used to throw you out of the country. If you serve in the National Guard to get benefits, you’ll have to leave your family to go to DC for pointless duty guarding the safest parts of that city. So why the hell would you want to serve as an active duty soldier or as part of the guard?

Of course, if you’re a piece of shit who wants to act like a brownshirt thug, ICE is definitely hiring.

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