News Update - December 13, 2008New Program to Expand Military to Include Legal Non-Immigrants Who Will Become Immediately Eligible for U.S. CitizenshipDue to a shortage of doctors, nurses, and linguists, all branches of the U.S. military are authorized to begin actively recruiting persons who are legally present in the United States and possess critical medical or language skills. The program will initially be limited to a recruitment of 1,000 individuals and continue for a period of one year. To be eligible applicants must have lived legally in the U.S. for at least two years as a refugee, asylee, or under “temporary protected status,” or under certain other legal statuses, including non-immigrant working or studying statuses, eg. – F-1, H-1B. Medical personnel are required to serve at least three years on active duty or six years in the Reserves. Foreign language specialists are required to serve four years of active duty. Chinese is listed as one of the eligible languages. Recruits will benefit from accelerated treatment in the U.S. citizenship process. Service during a time of war allows persons in the military to apply directly for U.S. citizenship without the need for first applying for permanent residence and waiting a period of years before applying for naturalization. On July 3, 2002, President Bush signed the “Expedited Naturalization
Executive Order” calling for the expedited naturalization
of aliens and non-citizens serving on active duty in the US Armed
Forces during the War on Terrorism. The Executive Order allows active
duty personnel serving on or after September 11, 2001 to immediately
file for citizenship. Normally, a military service member would
have to complete one-year of honorable service before qualifying
to file for citizenship. Section 329 of the Immigration and Nationality
Act authorizes the President to waive this requirement during periods
of military hostilities. † The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. ‡ This article © 2008 Alan Lee, Esq.
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Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee,
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