Are you between the ages of 18 and 26? It’s your prime time to have fun and get established. The government thinks otherwise! By law, many states enforce 18-year-old males to sign up for Selective Service. By default, men who are undocumented with immigrant visas and citizens are eligible to fill out the form.

At Eastfield, many males were found filling out the Selective Service Act form in order to receive state aid. The Selective Service Act faced criticism for being sexist and a one-way advantage system. Currently, it only targets men to sign up, and has banned women from being able to sign up for the service. Texas’ population has a population of 4.7 million immigrants or 17% of the total population. Although they are good and law-abiding citizens, they are ineligible for gaining citizenship if they don’t sign up for the Selective Service.

The army itself is stricter on undocumented people than U.S. citizens. If immigrants make a minor mistake, they’re kicked out of the army and deported to their country of origin. Today’s time is completely different from the 1940s. The mentality and motivations are different. Although the main army forms have lifted the ban for women to apply, the Selective Service still has it. This act affects the Hispanic community greatly, since we work hard to provide a comfortable lifestyle for our families and, do not forget, that we are the main target of the government. The government does not want to give undocumented citizens their “God-given rights” but it wants us to join the army, to “protect our country.” It’s time that the Selective Service Act is changed, to let it be optional. It shouldn’t be a felony to not want to join the army. The government has stated that we would be in school between the ages of 18-26, even though the average age of people graduating is between 22-24. Leaving us in two years of fear knowing that we could get drafted.

The government needs to hear the Hispanic community. We shouldn’t have to fill out the form just to be eligible to attend school, and risk being drafted. Even on the Selective Service page, under frequently asked questions, they state, “Registration with Selective Service must continue as a key component of national security strategy.”

Having a selective service mandatory doesn’t make it “selective”. National security shouldn’t be something that has to make selective service mandatory, they have to recruit it through the army by those who sign up for it.

It’s outrageous that the Selective Service states that “it is good to remember that freedom as we know it has been suppressed in many countries,” while they take away our freedom to choose if we want to enter the Selective Service or if we want to live our life in peace.