30,000 U.S. military troops not citizens

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=8e5def74eb899f80

Big News Network.com Wednesday 6th April, 2005 (UPI)

More than 20,000 military personnel have become U.S. citizens since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the Pentagon.

Another 5,000 have applications pending for citizenship, with that process being expedited for military members, shortening the wait from about nine months to 60 days.

more...

This is one way to become an American ...

[DulceDecorum]

1. Damn illegals taking our jobs away!!!

Minorities kept Delay out of the military by taking all the spots reserved for combat in Vietnam.
Now we can't get a berth in some beatup humvee in Iraq
because of these dang furriners who are out there dying fer Unka Sam.

[K8-EEE]

2. Work Not Enough War-Loving Republicans Want To Do....

you know how they say, they only take the jobs Americans don't want.

[LibDemAlways]

3. Just another way for repukes to

exploit immigrants -- make them cannon fodder. How many soldiers have become citizens posthumously?

[DulceDecorum]

4. Not that many --

don't want their dang relatives catching a slow boat to America.

[Charon]

19. Employ Immigrants

This is not new, A friend of mine was drafted during the Vietnam War (1967). He was a British Citizen, had served in the British Army.
He was in the coutry on a work visa. At his induction physical, he was 4f'ed due to a heart murmer. I believe the law at that time allowed for conscription of anyone in the country longer than 6 months. Provided they did not have any deferments. Also, for decades after WWII, the U.S. Navy, recruited Phillipine Nationals for the service. Normally, only one out of ten potential enlistees was accepted.

[countmyvote4real]

5. This is a stupid gamble on their part.

No matter the oppression in their foreign country, they have NO guarantees of any protection or benefits. And if they do, why don't those benefits extend to our National Guard members?

[BrotherBuzz]

6. I can see it coming,

Rumsfeld and his brownshirts sweeping the barrios searching out undocumented workers to press into service to stave off the pending draft. Hell, who need draftees that add "no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time" when you can tap into this workforce by dangling the citizenship carrot in front of them. In a convoluted way this will redefine the term 'backdoor draft'.

[rodeodance]

7. you may be right

[Art_from_Ark]

8. It was also a way for a barbarian to become a Roman citizen

It can also be a convenient way for a government to sic an army on peaceful citizen protestors, the way the Chinese autocrats did when they replaced the Chinese-speaking troops in Tienneman Square with Mongolian troops who spoke no Chinese and who were thus impervious to the pleas of the Chinese protestors they were mowing down.

[hedgetrimmer]

9. If they die before they are christened into the empire they are not

counted as U.S. dead. Just a side note.

[BrotherBuzz]

10. Are you sure about that?

I was in the service with foreign nationals but they were considered US troops. none of my friends died so I can't say with any authority, but I'm pretty sure we would have counted them....they may have been foreigners, but they were still my brothers.

On edit:

Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers in Iraq

by Miriam Kagan

09/22/03: (Inter Press Service) WASHINGTON - One of the first U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, was an orphaned Guatemalan who at the time of his death was not even an American citizen.

<more>

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4804.htm

[hedgetrimmer]

13. I am not sure, I am along the lines of undocumented soldiers.

Which in this case proves to be something other than what the article is about. Yet it is something that I have not been able to find out about.
I am looking at this one thing : http://aztlan.net/bigbushlie.htm
and am trying to verify this guys information, but I may stop because I am too damn tired. here is what I got...

~snip~Los Angeles, Alta California - September 18, 2003...Yesterday, however, the British newspaper "The Observer"~snip~
link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1041722,00.html

~snip~reports that the Pentagon is not counting the casualties suffered by these "undocumented soldiers". ~snip~
a link with some information: http://www.visalaw.com/03may4/7may403.html
~snip~Seattle Times staff reporter Florangela Davila is investigating the possibility of undocumented foreign nationals who have managed to enter the US Armed Forces and could be fighting overseas. Soldiers belonging to that category would not be legal permanent residents, and thus would not benefit from recent measures to ease the naturalization process for legal immigrants serving in Iraq. It is unclear what would become of the undocumented soldiers should they be discovered. Davila urges those with information, stories, leads or contacts to call 206-464-2916.~snip~
I have tried to find a story from Florangela Davilla concerning this issue but have come up with nothing.

and this link: http://www.pentagon.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040213-0444.html
~snip~Q: What about undocumented soldiers? Do they have a chance to get their situation resolved and to become citizens eventually?



Rumsfeld: First of all, I would have thought that on entry into the service their status would have been understood.



Q: Yes, but recently we have a case – this case when he lied and got into the U.S. forces, and then when they find out he almost was expelled. Finally, apparently he was a great soldier so they decide to let him become a citizen. Is that something that we can see happening more? Or was that an exception?



Rumsfeld: I simply do not know. Those are things that are handled by that particular service. They're handled on an individual case basis, and when they review this type of thing and make a judgment and that's the way it is being handled and should be handled.~snip~

all in all I believe I was wrong, my apologies.

[Judi Lynn]

16. ''What can we say of the young Latino men who sacrificed their lives in Ir

(From your linked article)

asked Jorge Mariscal, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Apr. 18, 2003 issue of 'Counterpunch'.

”That they fought without knowing their enemy, played their role as pawns in a geopolitical chess game devised by arrogant bureaucrats, and died simply trying to get an education; trying to have a fair shot at the American Dream that has eluded the vast majority of Latinos for over a century and a half.''
(snip/)

Trying to win something which is almost inaccessible shouldn't earn them such an amplified chance of being killed.

Also from the article:

As U.S. casualties in Iraq continue to mount, so does the worry in the country's Latino community that its children are dying in unusually high numbers and are being lured into dangerous service with targeted recruiting by the Armed Forces.

Many in the community worry that Hispanic men and women are being disproportionately exposed to risk and sent to the front lines.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while Latinos make up 9.5 percent of the actively enlisted forces, they are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments -- infantry, gun crews and seamanship -- and make up over 17.5 percent of the front lines.

These worries have been exacerbated during the recent conflict in Iraq. As of Aug. 28, Department of Defense (DOD) statistics show a casualty rate of more than 13 percent for people of Hispanic background serving in Iraq.
(snip)

Thanks.

[leftchick]

17. Do they give Citizenship After They Die in Iraq?

I wonder if this fellow had his before he died... :(



Benjamin Felix holds a picture of his nephew, Marine Cpl. Gary Wesley Rimes, at the family's Santa Maria, Calif., home Thursday, April 6, 2005. The military said Tuesday that Cpl. Rimes, who was born in Phillipines, died Friday as a reult of hostile action in Ramadi, Iraq. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

[BrotherBuzz]

22. I think this father is to busy to give a damn...

Fernando Suarez del Solar knows the truth and is probably more patriotic then most citizens in America. Imagine, a damn Mexican immigrant showing us what the right thing to do is. The article is a good read and indicates to me that there is hope for this world because of people like Fernando.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1230-01.htm

Dead Soldier's Dad Finds No Enemy in Iraq

by Rebecca Romani

ESCONDIDO, California - Fernando Suarez del Solar is a busy man. He is busy opening boxes, counting pills, counting bandages; he is busy checking everything in the boxes that come addressed to him from all over the United States.

Suarez stops for a moment. "There are other boxes," he says, "many of them in San Francisco, in New York, in Chicago. So many boxes."

He could be doing other things. It is holiday time, after all, and the Mexican immigrant could be out shopping for his grandchildren; he could be out enjoying the unusually balmy weather.

But he needs to be checking these boxes. Like Suarez, their contents will be heading for Iraq, on a mission that memorialises his only son, Jesus, one of the first soldiers to die in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Jesus died Mar. 27, 2003, after stepping on an unexploded U.S. cluster bomb. An advocate for the poor in his native Mexico, his father, who departed Monday, has been an outspoken advocate and tireless campaigner against the war ever since.
<more>


Sayne Suarez Del Solar mourns her husband, Jesus, who was a citizen of Mexico but a legal resident of the United States. He died in combat in Iraq. Their son Erik is 15 months old. (AP Photo/Todd Warshaw)

[0007]

21. Your kidding? Do they get death benefits?

I believe you! I just can't believe the U.S. would be so low.

[shanti]

11. cannon fodder

so sad.....:-(

[saigon68]

12. Mercenaries.

They will soon learn that once they are used up

THEY WILL be thrown away.

[qazplm]

14. considering

they have all time limits removed towards becoming a citizen, and most of them are in it for the college money or the citizenship anyways, sounds like a mutually beneficial transaction.

they get citizenship (and college and other veterans benefits) and the military gets more soldiers.

If I were an immigrant, it wouldnt even be a question, you can be a citizen within one year of signing up, do a three year hitch, and you are instant citizen.

The president has done about 3 things I agree with since 2000, expediting the rules so that noncitizen soldiers can get their citizenship quicker is one I do.

Not sure why you have a problem with it though.

[saigon68]

25. I have no problem with it

I hate to hear the Mercenary families complain when the MERC is GREASED OR BARBECUED.

[DulceDecorum]

23. About the only "good" thing about the war in Iraq

is that the Iraqi are systematically and THOROUGHLY ridding the world of its most virulent mercenaries.
For that we owe them a debt of gratitude.

since 1968 the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a firm position stating that the practice of employing mercenaries against national liberation movements is a criminal act, (4) and the mercenaries themselves are criminals. In 1977 it was once more the Security Council which adopted, by consensus, a resolution condemning the recruitment of mercenaries with the objective to overthrow governments of Member States of the United Nations.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/ffc84b7639b26f93c12563cd00434156?OpenDocument

Damn Blackwater to hell.
Frigging war criminals.
Even Mafia hitmen spit on them -- when they are in a generous mood.

[hack89]

26. So... exactly how many have been killed? (nt)

[Robeson]

15. This reminds me of late Classical Rome.....

They had plenty of citizens, but most thought they were to good to do the grunt work, because they were Romans. So they recruited Goths, Huns, Visigoths, Vandals, and every other surrounding peoples to do their fighting. If they fought for Rome, they got citizenship.

Here we are in a nation of 290 millions people, and we have to bring in immigrants to fill in the ranks. If they fight for us, they get citizenship. Anybody who says we are not an imperial nation, is in denial. This just shows to what depths we have fallen. Without mercenaries, we can't man our imperial armies. Wow.

[reality based]

20. I, too, thought of Rome when I first saw this thread

but I wonder if the policy of extending citizenship to those who serve is itself a negative. True, it may reveal what privileged chicken hawks we are, but it also shows a certain willingness to extend opportunity. It furnishes some hope that we have not entered a death spiral. The story of these largely Hispanic (and that really means mestizo and native American) young people who serve is often a moving example of what America at its best can be. Did the Roman policy destroy Rome or extend its life?

[DulceDecorum]

24. And I thought of

Caligula.

[MADem]

18. The regs are as follows: you have to be legally a resident

...with a green card, in order to join. They aren't taking kids who sneak over the border. They have to show their green card at the time they enter the Delayed Entry Program, and the card has to matched up with the person at Immigration and Naturalization before they ship. In the past (we are talking decades ago), I know they had problems with fake green cards, but since they've changed them they are way harder to forge, and the trackback to INS shakes out the fakes.

It was very hard for green carders to get citizenship in the past because of the requirement to have a set amount of time in the US not just prior to, but during the application process. Overseas duty is a part of military life, so this made it even more difficult for these kids. I am not an expert on the current law, but I understand that a lot of those impediments are lifted for these kids serving under arms overseas.