Originally published here On VDARE.com on this day in 2015.

Brenda Walker notes below in Illegal Alien Military Amnesty Amendment Defeated in House Vote that "the result was 221-202, so 20 Republicans voted in favor of allowing illegal aliens to take citizens’ places in the military. The House has 245 Republicans and 188 Democrats."

A Hispanic reporter on The Hill has the story:

Divided GOP rejects allowing illegal immigrants in military

By Cristina Marcos, May 14, 2015

The House on Thursday voted to strip a provision from the annual defense bill that edged toward allowing young illegal immigrants to enlist in the military.

Divisions between ardent GOP opponents of illegal immigration and vulnerable Republicans who represent districts with large Hispanic constituencies flared in the 221-202 vote.

Twenty Republicans voted with all Democrats in opposition of the amendment from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) that killed the immigration language. [More]

There's a list of the 20 Republicans, but I'll get to that in a minute. Breitbart has the same story, headed “20 Traitors: Republicans Who Voted To Gut America’s Military Using Amnestied Illegal Aliens.” It's by Matthew Boyle. (Not a Hispanic.) Boyle notes that the language allowing illegals in the military was  "inserted during the Armed Services Committee markup by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)—a freshman liberal Democrat who wants to amnesty all the illegal aliens in America." Rep. Gallego is Hispanic.  Breitbart has the list of the Republicans who voted to let illegals in the military, with Conservative Review ratings, but I'll use the one from The Hill:

The 20 Republicans who voted against the measure were Reps. Mike Coffman (Colo.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Jeff Denham (Calif.), Charlie Dent (Pa.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Bob Dold (Ill.), Chris Gibson (N.Y.), Richard Hanna (N.Y.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Tom MacArthur (N.J.), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Dan Newhouse (Wash.), Dave Reichert (Wash.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Fred Upton (Mich.) and David Valadao (Calif.).

Several of the Republicans who voted for this thing are also Hispanic Republicans. The emphases were  added by me. Mike Coffman is a special case—not Hispanic himself, but has been learning Spanish and speaking it to his Colorado Hispanic constituents.

All this has inspired a teary, angry piece on The Federalist: Only Traitors Want To Let Illegal Immigrants Join The Military. Right?, by Ben Domenech, May 15, 2015.

Domenech quotes representative Mo Brooks' statement on this mini-victory for Americans:

I asked my colleagues to consider how much American families are struggling in an anemic job and wage market and how much the Gallego amendment makes job and income prospects for Americans even worse. It makes no sense to me that, at the same time the Army is downsizing and issuing pink slips to American soldiers serving in Afghanistan, there are Congressmen who seek to help illegal aliens deprive American citizens and lawful immigrants of military service opportunities.”

That wage and income stuff is, of course, untrue. [This is a link to a Ramesh Ponnuru (!) piece on Bloomberg News, titled Don't Blame Immigrants for Your Flat Paycheck.] But never mind that. The important thing is that Breitbart goes on to name and shame the twenty Republican “traitors” who voted to allow such illegal immigrants to serve.

That would be illegal immigrants like Silvestre Santana Herrera. If you will permit a lengthy quote:

No, I won't. What Domenech is describing is a World War II era "Dreamer" (not called that at the time) who found out when he was drafted that the people he knew as his parents were actually his uncle and aunt (they'd been lying to him all his life) and that he'd been born in Camargo, Mexico. Although his adoptive parents were presumably Mexican-Americans themselves, their own loyalty to the US seems to have been limited.

“That is when the man Herrera had believed to be his father gave him the stunning news of his Mexican birth, and said, “Son, you don’t have to go, they can’t draft you…you aren’t an American citizen.” Even in the face of these multiple shocks, and a perfect opportunity to dodge the war, Herrera was unswayed. As he later related, “I thought, I’m going anyway. I didn’t want anybody to die in my place… I felt that I had my adopted country that had been so nice to me.”

That's because he'd been brought up as an American, in American schools that emphasized patriotism. We don't get that anymore, especially in the Southwest. Herrera earned the Medal of Honor in France, and lost his legs in the process. He also became an American citizen, which was one of his goals when he entered the military.  But that's what Steve Sailer calls "The New Antiquarianism"—going back 50 or a 100 years for your examples.

Okay, I accept that Herrera was a patriotic American. I do not accept that Republican congresspersons Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and David Valadao are. What about  Hispanic Conservatism Inc drone Ben Domenech—who's sort of a Puerto Rican? Email him and ask.