Congresswoman Veronica Escobar speaks says Trump administration decisions will have negative impact on military recruitment

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- Saturday Congresswoman Veronica Escobar held a news conference expressing how she believes the Trump administration will make it hard to recruit people for the military.

Escobar says, post-Covid there were major challenges in recruitment for the U.S. military, and recent decisions by the White House, such as the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown will negatively impact recruitment efforts.

"It was, unfortunately, not completely surprising, but it was incredibly disappointing. And it should be alarming to all Americans that a very talented member of military leadership was fired because he believes in diversity," Escobar said.

According to the New York Times, the Trump administration is gearing up to detain undocumented immigrants at Fort Bliss.

"We have had three occasions when Fort Bliss has been used, with immigrants. All three have been emergency situations. Two of those were to house unaccompanied minors temporarily because all the shelters were full. I will tell you, the after review of that operation demonstrated that we were set back in terms of our military readiness by two years." Escobar said.

ABC-7 reached out to Congressman Tony Gonzales and the U.S. Department of Defense but we did not receive a respond.