Army, Navy add citizenship option to boot camp

[High_Gravity]

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.

"The moment the Soviet Union broke up, I decided America was the place for me to be," said Spec. Rima Rusnac, 33, of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, just after taking her oath of citizenship recently. "In America, I can exercise my full potential and be free."

Rusnac, who holds a college degree in English and German, was finishing boot camp at Fort Jackson, the Army's largest training installation. She was headed for further training as a combat medic at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, a skill that is at a premium because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As she spoke, eight other soldiers from countries including Iran, Haiti, Australia and Bangladesh celebrated and showed friends and family their new citizenship papers, just a day before they were all due to graduate from their 10 weeks of Army basic training.

"In February alone, we took in more than 200 applications," said Karen Dalziel, an officer from Homeland Security's citizenship and immigration arm, who administered the oath to the soldiers.

Dalziel said she has been swearing in 30 to 50 soldiers on a weekly basis.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, helped speed up citizenship for military recruits. President George W. Bush signed an executive order allowing a more compressed time frame because the nation was in a "period of hostilities." Before the change, military members had to serve one year of honorable service to even begin the sometimes-lengthy process of applying.

It can be difficult for military applicants to get access to U.S. officials while deployed around the world. So the Army opened the doors at its five basic training sites to immigration officials in late 2009, and the Navy last year started hosting immigration officials at its single basic training post near Chicago.

About 1,000 soldiers and sailors completed the citizenship process at basic training sites in fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30. About 660 have been able to complete it in the first six months of this fiscal year, said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Washington.

Of course, some applicants had begun their work toward citizenship papers years ago. Overall, the government granted citizenship to 11,146 service members in fiscal 2010. Between September 2001 and the first part of the 2011 fiscal year, some 68,974 members of all service branches have become citizens, the agency says.

Army, Navy add citizenship option to boot camp - Yahoo! News

 

[martybegan]

Basically just helping them with the paperwork. The are not waiving the waiting period or the other requirements.

Nothing wrong here.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Sounds fair to me.

 

[Shooter]

As long as it doesn't effect the recruit's training or the other recruits' training or become a distraction this is a good thing.

In over 3 decades in the Corps I've seen tons of people from all different countries with all different backgrounds come down the pipelines. And I can honestly say the military is better because of them.