03 February 2010

New Citizens in the Volunteer Military

 

Foreign-born military personnel salute during a naturalization ceremony in California in 2006.

Foreign-born military personnel salute during a naturalization ceremony in California in 2006.

This article is excerpted from the book American Citizenship, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 4.57MB).

Perhaps the ultimate volunteers are the people who enlist in military service, willingly giving up years of their lives to defend their country and their fellow citizens. The demands of duty are great, the pay is relatively low, but the volunteer military remains strong. Since the military draft ended in 1973, the United States has relied on volunteers to fill its military forces, numbering more than 1.4 million.

Thousands of noncitizen immigrants are in the ranks of the U.S. military. As of September 2009, more than 50,000 immigrant soldiers had become citizens since September 2001, and the number keeps growing.

At a naturalization ceremony at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina in October 2008, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates welcomed 42 men and women into citizenship. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines hailed from 26 countries, and many had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This nation that welcomes you with warmth and with pride is very much in your debt, because you have shown your love for this country in the most honorable way possible,” Gates said.

Army 2^nd Lt. Memorina Edwin Barnes, a native of Micronesia, became a U.S. citizen along with 250 other service members on March 4, 2009, in Iraq. On receiving a U.S. flag and her certificate of citizenship, Barnes said, “I was overwhelmed and felt a surge of pride.” With 15 years of military service to her credit, Barnes added, “Every soldier who received their citizenship today took steps long before this to get their citizenship, and we all served our nation even before we could call it home.”

Both citizens and permanent alien residents are eligible to serve in the U.S. military. In peacetime, noncitizens who serve in the military may obtain citizenship in three years, as opposed to the five-year wait required of civilian applicants. During time of military hostilities, however, the president of the United States may allow noncitizens immediate naturalization. In July 2002, President George W. Bush issued an executive order granting expedited citizenship to immigrant men and women who served in the U.S. military since September 11, 2001. Previous administrations took similar actions, granting citizenship to 143,000 military participants in World Wars I and II, 31,000 who fought in the Korean War, and more than 100,000 veterans of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars.