Last week, the news broke that ICE agents will be at the gates of Parris Island to screen family members attending graduation for immigration status. I've been to Marine Corps boot camp graduation twice, once for each of my brothers. I still have the proof 20 years later: a sunburn from sitting in the stands, captured forever in my old wedding photos, my strapless dress documenting the time spent beaming as I watched the new Marines move with precision across the parade deck.
Before the ceremony and the sunburn, there was another special moment. After 13 weeks of no contact, the recruits take a run around the base and come streaming by the families. You scan the endless formation for the face you haven't seen since they left. When you find your person, it’s a moment of pure pride and joy. They're different. They're the same. What happened to their hair? They’re so skinny. They made it! Parents are there with siblings, spouses, and friends. Everyone who held their breath through 13 weeks, kept it together, and showed up to support.
That moment belongs to the Marine and to their family. It matters in ways that are hard to put into words. The whole weekend of celebration is deeply meaningful, even as I look back decades later.
The Marine Corps acknowledged this is the first time in recent memory that federal law enforcement will operate in this capacity at the installation. The Department of Homeland Security said no arrests would be made. But what is that assurance worth to a mother who hasn't seen her child in 13 weeks and now has to decide whether it is safe to drive through that gate?
Some families won't go through it. Their Marine will look into the crowd and not find them there.
Sadly, this isn't the first time this administration has treated military families as expendable. We have watched it happen in different forms for years: the President’s dismissive treatment of Gold Star families, including telling a grieving widow that her husband “knew what he signed up for.” Secretary Hegseth claiming that military families support a war in Iran while the families report otherwise. The deportation of military spouses and family members over the past year, leaving service members scrambling for answers. The pattern is not new.
But what is happening at Parris Island is a different kind of wrong. It is not ignorance or indifference. It is the deliberate use of one of a significant moment in a military family's life as an immigration enforcement opportunity. It turns a celebration into a checkpoint. The Marines on the parade deck during the ceremony signed up to die for this country if called upon. But their families can't even trust the institution enough to drive through the gate to watch their Marine graduate.
The official justification is force protection due to the Iran conflict. But USMC graduation ceremonies are not a security threat, and this policy was not designed with security in mind. It was designed to send a message: that belonging is conditional, that service does not protect your family, and that showing up for your Marine may come at a cost.
That message has consequences. The military has long relied on promises of immigration and inclusion as a recruitment tool. For immigrant communities, service in uniform has historically been one of the most direct paths to citizenship in this country. The naturalization process for service members has represented something real about what America asks of people and what it offers in return. What does it mean to recruit from those communities now? What does it signal to a family weighing whether military service is worth the sacrifice when they learn that their presence at graduation may be used against them? Recruiting and retention in the ranks were already challenges before this week. This new tactic does not help.
The harm from this deployment of ICE resources is not abstract. It is happening to real families, at a real gate, on what should be one of the proudest days of their lives.
I know what it felt like to go through those gates for my brothers. I know what it meant to be there, proud and sunburned. I cannot imagine being told that attending was a risk, and that the safest thing I could do was stay home.
These are families who believed enough in this country to send their loved ones to serve it. In many cases, they came to this country because they believed in what it stood for. Their Marines raised their right hand and swore an oath to defend the Constitution. And this is the welcome mat this administration has laid out for them as they come to celebrate the few and the proud who make it through Marine Corps boot camp.
What is being done at Parris Island is dangerous, short-sighted, and un-American. It breaks my heart for every family who will miss this moment because they are rightfully afraid, no matter what assurances are offered on their way through the gates. They deserve better. So do the Marines looking for their faces in the crowd.
Libby Jamison is an attorney, advocate, and the proud sister of two United States Marines.