As many of you know you, approximately 4-5% of our service people (“Fighting for their citizenship,†L.A. Times, 4/1/03) are not US citizens but join the military in hoping that by joining this will speed up the process. Many of these military people have spent their whole lives in the United States but were born somewhere else. They want to be able to become a citizen of the country that has always been their home, they went to be able to go to college. Some of course are recruited to join the US Army while in Mexico.
GW changed the law to allow veterans who were already here as permanent residents (that is with a Green Card) to more easily apply for citizenship.
“Under an Executive Order signed by President Bush in July 2002, legal permanent residents actively serving in the U.S. military, and legal permanent residents who were on active duty on September 11, 2001 or after, and honorably discharged, are immediately eligible to apply for naturalization. The President is authorized to waive the normal residency requirements for naturalization during specified periods of military hostilities. The July 2002 Executive Order designates the War on Terrorism, including the current conflict in Iraq, is such a period. More than 13,000 military personnel have applied for expedited citizenship since the Executive Order was enacted.” From the governmental U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
13,000! And that is those who have applied who were residents before joining (that is they had green cards). There are plenty who came into the US undocumented and joined who do NOT fall under this Executive Order.
You can do a google search and get plenty of sites from all sides of the political divide about the amount of non-citizens serving. For a brief outline on newspaper stories you can check here.
Tell it like it is!