We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.

This story hits the Republican anti-immigrant base/ support the troops/ Bush is a moral man trifecta.

CBS/AP) While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, whom he married in 2004.

Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said 23-year-old Hiraldo illegally entered the United States in 2001 to reunite with her husband, whom she had met in her native Dominican Republic and later married at his New York State Army base in 2004.

If you haven't been following the search for the two soldiers then suffice it say it looks like Jimenez is most likely dead. Judging by state of the body of his squad mate that they recovered it's a good guess to say his death was probably pretty horrible.

You could argue that he knew the risks when he signed up and that he probably signed up just to gain residency for himself and his wife. I don't care. The least you could say is that he took that risk. Most of the critics of immigration seem to fall squarely into the chickenhawk category when it comes to the war in Iraq from where I'm sitting. He's obviously a braver man than they, regardless of his reasons.

All that doesn't even begin to touch on the thing that really disgusts me about this story. The Bush administration could give her amnesty with a wave of a pen. It doesn't appear to this point that they've avoided doing so out of any weird idea about sticking to the letter of the law (but only on immigration, mind you) but rather that they simply don't care.

It's just another vivid reminder that the soldiers and their families are worthless in the eyes of this administration unless it's in their capacity as props to stand behind the President while he delivers a speech on how he's tough on terror.