Pentagon Considers Using TikTok, Illegal Immigrants, People with Medical Issues to Solve Recruitment Problems

The Pentagon is reportedly considering using TikTok as a recruitment platform and reaching out to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients to bolster the military’s lagging recruitment rates in 2022, NBC News reported Monday.

The Pentagon is scrambling for solutions to the military’s ongoing recruitment crisis, U.S. officials confirmed to NBC. The Army has been hit the worst, having reached only 40% of its annual recruitment goals nine months into the fiscal year, according to data obtained by NBC.

One reported solution allows recruitment officers to utilize the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, which former President Donald Trump attempted to ban from the U.S. in 2020 over fears the Chinese government could exploit personal data obtained through the app. The Biden administration announced a national security review of TikTok, but one year later, it has not announced any new updates to the inquiry, Reuters reported Friday.

“The Services are experiencing a very difficult recruiting market and continue to explore the best tools/levers to meet these challenges,” a Pentagon spokesman told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The services may intensify efforts to recruit DACA recipients, children of illegal immigrants the Obama administration gave authorization to live and work in the U.S., according to NBC.

DACA recipients have served in the U.S. military prior to full naturalization, according to a 2017 United States Citizenship and Immigration Services statement. The Trump administration came under fire for discharging DACA recipients from the military, PBS news reported in 2018.

The Pentagon is also reviewing medical conditions that have historically disqualified individuals from service or required them to obtain special waivers, military and defense officials told NBC. A record number of Americans are ineligible to serve, often for medical reasons, according to numbers obtained by NBC.

“The Department continuously reviews accession medical standards, carefully considering experience-based clinical information, peer-reviewed scientific studies and expert consensus and the performance of existing standards in light of empirical data and attrition, deployment readiness, waivers and disability rates,” the Pentagon spokesman told TheDCNF.

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The Army’s goal for new active duty recruits has shrunk 20% over past years, from 27,000 down to 21,000, and of that, the Army fell 30% short of its goal as of March, according to a press release from the Office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness. The Army dropped the requirement for new recruits to have high school diplomas or the GED equivalent on June 24, according to Military.com.