Join the Marines, get injured in Iraq, and you can become a U.S. Citizen

[spooked]

Is U.S. Citizenship really worth losing parts of your skull, suffering partial brain damage, and becoming paralyzed on the right side of your body? (hence Marine Angel Gomez takes the oath of citizenship with his left hand).


U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Angel Gomez holds up his left arm during a ceremony at the Veterans Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., Thursday, July 14, 2005, as his parents Paulino and Antonia Gomez stands behind. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gave Gomez his U.S. citizenship after he was injured in an explosion outside of Baghdad, Iraq in April. Gomez sustained head wounds and was unable to hold up his right arm during the ceremony. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/14/BAgomez14.DTL

San Francisco Chronicle
Marine injured in Iraq becomes American citizen

It was a somber ceremony and a proud moment for Gomez, who was seven years old when his family came to California from Mexico and who joined the U.S. Marine Corps three years ago.

David Still, district director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, praised him for making “the ultimate sacrifice for a country that was not yet willing to adopt you.”

“Thank you,” was all Gomez could say in return.

“A bomb exploded, and that was it,” is about all he can recall. Perhaps it is better that way. His injuries were so severe that the portion of his skull shattered in the blast remains at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda Md., and will stay there until the swelling in his brain subsides enough for doctors to reattach it...

But Gomez’s father, Paulino Gomez, is thankful that his son is alive, and proud that he’s become a United States citizen. He said as much in Spanish during today’s ceremony.

Gomez was one of 45,000 non-U.S. citizens serving in the U.S. military. On July 3, 2002, President Bush issued an executive order making all military members in permanent resident immigration status immediately eligible to be naturalized.

Since then, more than 16,000 military members have benefited through expedited naturalization.

[madeline_con]

1. Maybe I'm totally uninformed...

but I didin't know they'd let you in if you weren't a citizen. ??

Can't Al Qaeda infiltrate the US armed forces?

[spooked]

3. That's what I had assumed too.

I guess all you need is a green card...

New Citizen Already Sacrificed In Battle
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_195213748.html

Before the ceremony in Palo Alto Thursday, Angel Gomez was one of an estimated 40,000 non-citizens currently serving and fighting in our U.S. military. Gomez had a green card and was a legal resident, which is all the government requires to join the military. And once in uniform, non-citizens can be naturalized five years faster than other immigrants.

"As soon as the application is made, we'll take it out of line. We'll take it in front of others," said David Still of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "We naturalize people overseas. We've done that for the past year. We're trying to make it easy."

Gomez can only speak in one-word phrases, due to some brain damage. He originally joined the Marines to pay for school, and he still wants to be a pharmacy tech. But he's already an American hero.

[madeline_con]

5. "40,000 non-citizens currently serving"

OH. MY. GOD.

Well, seemingly compassionate DUH-bya's "guest worker" proposal can now be properly named "guest soldier".

This was about doing jobs Americans don't want to do, after all!

[spooked]

6. Make that 80,000 and look at this EO signed by Bush in July 2002

Migrants fight to be American
http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208~12588~2950637,00.html

Army Sgt. Manuel Mendoza-Valencia lost both legs fighting for his adopted country, a nation where he couldn't even cast a vote.

Even his green card had expired last October when a roadside explosive device blew his vehicle "three stories high" taking the young soldier's legs along with it, his sister said.

This Fourth of July, Mendoza-Valencia remains in a wheelchair at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., learning to walk again on prosthetic legs.

In a special ceremony at the hospital in December, the sergeant took the oath of U.S. citizenship.

He is among the more than 80,000 immigrants in the U.S. military. About half are legal permanent residents who have not become citizens.

An executive order signed by President Bush in July 2002 allows noncitizens serving in the military to apply for citizenship after one day of active-duty service. More than 16,000 military members have taken advantage of the decree and become citizens, immigration officials said.

[madeline_con]

15. "... after one day of active-duty service..."

OMG. Theycan become a citizen, and then ship out. Great. DUH-bya is an asshole to dangle this in front of people to create cannon fodder! :mad:

[DS1]

10. I was one

Hell, there was a guy that flew from Ireland directly to Parris Island after doing the rest of the paperwork with recruiters by Int'l Mail. There was a Vietnamese kid in the next rack over. You don't have to get injured per se, serving supposedly helps, I just couldn't have been bothered with getting an American citizenship - in my eyes it just made me a huge target if I ever travelled overseas :shrug:

[madeline_con]

16. "... a huge target ..."

Probably, if your passport was seen. Trvelling overseas with the armed services would have made you a targat anyway, right? It's that uniform...

[DS1]

18. Well, first of all, I never traveled in uniform, second, I was planning

for the rest of my life.

[madeline_con]

20. "I never traveled in uniform ..."

I mean when you got where you were going. All you'd have to do is be there...

[Bridget Burke]

4. Non-citizens have served the US since the beginning....

This article from the Army Times points out that Irish immigrants served the US in the Civil War. (Some also fought for the Confederacy.) Of course, the story of the San Patricio soldiers indicates that non-citizens were involved even earlier.

www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-788226.php

And non-citizen legal residents of the US could be drafted--back when there was a draft.

[mode13h_net]

7. Various people have called for a foreign legion as well...

In the tradition of france or spain. I don't really like the idea of the U.S. possibly hiring mercs and criminals to do their fighting for them under an American flag. Leave that to the contracted private security 'associates' *cough*blackwater*cough*. There's no hiding what they fight for.

$$$

[Bridget Burke]

9. No, we DON'T need a foreign legion.

I'm sure we're paying for enough questionable folks in the private security services hired by the government. Let's not put them in uniform.

One non-citizen from the Houston area was a young woman who was born in Monterey, brought here as a child. She wanted money to attend the University of Houston, but died in Iraq.

[mode13h_net]

24. Maybe I didn't make myself clear in my post.

Please don't think I was somehow proposing an american foreign legion. I doubted the need or my own desire for a foreign legion full of 'criminals and mercs' as I said. And I also mentioned my disdain for highly paid contractors, who get to do whatever they want and never have to answer to military rules, ethics, or justice.

[madeline_con]

17. "the U.S. possibly hiring mercs and criminals ..."

"*blackwater*"

What happened to the U.S. disavowing any knowledge of these kind of guys?

[newyawker99]

22. Hi mode13h_net!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[flordehinojos]

2. and if you die ... they'll throw your U.S.A CERTIFICATE OF CITIZENSHIP

into your coffin for you when they bury you... you will be one proud dead american!

[leetrisck]

8. Christian Science Monitor had a long article

about this very thing this month - this is how bush is getting his cannon fodder.

[MadHound]

11. This is really a non-issue

In so much that this has been standard practice since the founding of this country. If you were foreign born, military service was an easy and quick means of gaining American citizenship. And during the Civil War and earlier, enrollment in the military during a time of war was one way that a slave could gain their freedom, and this included slaves who fought for the Confederacy.

This practice has also been used throughout history in most major armies. Even during the heyday of Rome, military service was one of the major ways that a non-Roman male could gain citizenship.

This is also how Americans have also gained citizenship in other countries, most notably France, but others as well.

I think that this is a non-issue.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Not all countries have such a cavalier attitude

If you offer the idea of noncitizen soldiers to a Brazilian commanding officer, you'll get your ass kicked so hard it won't even be funny.

[MadHound]

14. I realize that there are exceptions to everything

However most armies throughout history, especially Western armies, have used foreign born soldiers, usually holding out the offer of citizenship in exchange for service. This comes down from the dawn of military conflict, with most leaders figuring that if one is willing to fight for a foreign army, then one deserves to be a citizen of that country.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. I was in the marines. I wonder if they'd give me Canadian citizenship.

About all I got out of my 4 years was a talent for making a bed that bounces quarters, the ability to walk in a straight line when drunk, skills in how to render a jet unflyable when the pilot is an asshole, (too bad about your flight pay Captain), an ability to find booze almost anywhere, and many more useful and much in demand skills.

Not to mention a lifelong contempt and loathing for the military.

[gatorboy]

19. Sounds like Starship Troopers

Service guarantees citizenship

[bleedingheart]

21. One of my cousins got his citizenship serving in the Army

he was an interpreter...could speak his native Lithuanian and in addition...Polish and Russian. He was one of Nikita Kruschev's escorts when he visted the US.

[europegirl4jfk]

23. They are even interested in 15 year old exchange students!

My daughter (of German-French citizenship) spent the last school-year as an exchange student in the US. She got a letter from the army who offered her a scholarship for college etc. if she joins. I was totally shocked! She was not even 16 then and had a student visa, not a green card. I have to confess that I'm glad she is back an save here in Europe now.