Akin to something out of Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” some branches of our military are providing a path to citizenship for those who serve.
Army, Navy add citizenship option to boot camp
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – Military service has long been one route to U.S. citizenship. Now the Army and Navy, in need of specialists and language skills in wartime, are speeding things up by allowing recruits to wrap up the process while they’re still in basic training.
It means a change in a no-visitors policy during boot camp, to allow federal immigration officers access to the recruits. But military officials say it’s a well-deserved break for volunteers who otherwise would have to slog through the bureaucratic ordeal during deployments around the world, often far from U.S. embassies.
The military route is not a short-cut for foreigners abroad to get into the U.S. Only legal immigrants can apply, officials stress, and they must complete five years of honorable service or chance having their citizenship revoked.
I think I have mixed feelings about this policy myself, but it seems a fine idea on the face of it. There’s a hint of PC multiculturalism in there as well that troubles me some.
There’s a long and storied history of immigrants serving with distinction and honor, and our military has long used incentives to retain or recruit folks in certain specialties… but is THIS policy a step too far?
Actually, the current policy is like one in the Starship Troopers – you serve THEN you get a citizenship. The new one – I am not sure: you get your citizenship before you actually become a soldier/sailor??
Concur–the way it used to be would work fine for me…serve at least a four-year hitch, then be offered citizenship.
I don’t like the whole underlining idea that we now have to outsource our war-fighting. If we cannot supply enough natural born or already naturalized citizens, we have bigger issues to discus then implementing some mechanism to make citizens of non-citizens. I don’t like German analogies but a Roman one might be appropriate. Toward the end of the empire, the vast majority of Roman legionnaires and their officers were not in fact native Romans. Native Romans felt fighting in the legions was beneath them and only worthy of the lesser races like Gauls, Spaniards and the various Goth groups. Sound at all familiar?
“they must complete five years of honorable service or chance having their citizenship revoked.”
I spent the last year doing a fair amount of legal research on this very issue, and as far as I can tell, once it’s granted, the government would be hard pressed to revoke a person’s citizenship in this fashion. It’s an extremely high legal threshold to surmount to revoke citizenship (as it should be) and most of the cases where the government has been successful have been where it could prove the person intentionally lied or omitted information on their application for naturalization that, if known, would have led to denial. For example, a number of Nazi war criminals who took on new identities and concealed their wartime activities when they emigrated to the U.S. after the war ended up getting caught and deported. In the research I’ve done, I have yet to find anything supporting the notion that there is such a thing as “conditional citizenship”; you’re either a citizen or you aren’t, and if you are, you have all the same rights as any native-born citizen from the moment you take the oath. As the article notes, the government has been fast-tracking non-citizen veterans to citizenship ever since 9/11 (and during most prior wars as well) under the pretense that they could lose their citizenship if they didn’t complete an honorable period of service, but I can’t find a case where they actually tried to enforce it against anyone who washed out.
That said, I think its a fine policy and I doubt it will be widely abused by the unscrupulous; you have to be a legal permanent resident to join the military, and there are far easier ways to game the system to gain citizenship if that is one’s goal (like marrying some chump). Those who naturalize through military service are, like most other service members, probably there because they genuinely want to serve.
I’m not exactly comfortable with this, either. Make they actually SERVE some time before they can earn their citizenship. What if someone gets their citizenship in Basic and doesn’t fulfill their commitment? You can’t exactly just undo their citizenship, now, can you?
My issue is guys just going through basic to get their citizenship then doing something to get bounced out of the army once it’s been secured. I think if they want to speed up the process they have to do 2 years (not including basic) then get citizenship
I think it’s a great idea for someone to earn their citizenship this way but I’m in agreement with most here. I have no problem with them getting through the burocratic mess earlier, but let’s not make it official until they complete their 1st enlistment honorably….
I think this is awesome. It’s not as if they automatic get citizenship; from what I can tell they just get the massively bureaucratic process front loaded in basic. Right? There’s (tens or hundreds of) millions of people around the world desperate to come to the US and gain citizenship. Making it easier for those who are willing to serve and contribute (more than could be said of many who are born into it) is a winning concept for everyone involved. We gain more, better citizens and the most driven of immigrants are given a leg up in achieving the American dream. That the military will benefit from easier access to a willing pool of recruits and their broad array of inherent language and cultural knowledge just makes it all the better.
Actually, I’d break it down in ways that would likely piss people off.
Qualify for a Purple Heart, CIB or CAB or the other service equivlents?
Then you get citizenship. At the same time.
Otherwise, 4 years service first.
I don’t know about the PH/CIB criteria for citizenship. I like the idea in the abstract, the French have something similar called Francais par le sang verse or “French by spilled blood”, but those awards are already obscenely politicized and cheapened. We all know the stories, mortar hits a couple hundred yards away, dude spooks and falls off truck, breaks leg, gets purple heart and combat badge. Now add the burden on commanders knowing that awarding those will bear with them automatic citizenship. I’m not sure it’ll work.
“My issue is guys just going through basic to get their citizenship then doing something to get bounced out of the army once it’s been secured.”
I don’t think most people realize that this would even be an option. I’d bet that most who join to gain citizenship are in greater-than-average need of the attendant benefits that come with military service, as compared to citizen service members. They’d lose those benefits either way if they get bounced out, and be stuck with the negative discharge on their record too. Nobody wants that; if you go to all the trouble of getting into the military, you’re probably inclined to do your best to see it through.
Finrod said: “…we now have to outsource our war-fighting….” We’ve been doing that for a very long time. WW-II had Canadian guys in our military. I have several friends who are Canadian who were in the US military during ‘Nam. While that was “outsourcing or war fighting”, I don’t know how many of them used that to get citizenship.
I would go for the full enlistment before any paper handed over.
America has always had non-native, non-English speaking emigres in its army. One paratrooper NCO I met enlisted in Germany. We don’t have a Foreign Legion, and we aren’t “outsourcing” our war.
“Outsourcing” would be contracting El Salvador to kick Libya’s butt on our behalf. We, America, are Europe’s outsource.
IMO: if one’s service is characterized as honorable, and the servicemember is competent in English, then please give the man or woman citizenship.
The trick, as always, is not the servicemember. It’s the dependents: dependent mother and/or grandmother of the SM – now who could refuse Abuela? Son and daughter? 6th cousin, twice removed, with the MS-13 tatts? Inhumane not to let them in!
I see a federally-approved, Executive-branch only end run around the Constitution, the Law of the Land – in short: Amnesty.
The problem is, as usual, one of numbers. If we open the gates and tell one and all that if you do a hitch in the service we will give you American citizenship, what will the response be? How many will take the deal? We have always had foreign born in the military but the numbers have typically been fairly small in comparison to the general population. Its the numbers that worry me, but apparently they only worry me.
i do not see a problem with this at all in june i will be going to see my niece graduate from m.p. school at ft leonard wood mo. she is a third generation american and a fourth generation us army. my grandfather came over after the uprising in 1916 and enlisted in the us army and became a citizen, one uncle enlisted in ww2 another during korea,
both my brother anb i enlisted during vietnam all of us have served honorably, none have been arrested and all have or were gainfully employed. i think that this program could provide a good foundation for generations of families to become americans
I worked with a young police officer, a Mexican, who earned his citizenship by taking a round through the throat in a firefight in Iraq while serving with the U.S. Army. When he was assigned to my team a couple of the younger officers were sitting around one day making fun of his accent and wondering how a Mexican could be a police officer.
With eight years of service myself, this upset me more than most. I must admit I teed off on this group of youngsters, explaining in no uncertain terms that this young AMERICAN had done more to EARN his citizenship than the crowd before me that had simply been born in this country and had yet to fight for it.