EDITORIAL – Immigrants enticed to enlist

President Bush signed an executive order in 2002 allowing immigrants, with valid green… President Bush signed an executive order in 2002 allowing immigrants, with valid green cards, to become U.S. citizens as soon as they are sworn into a branch of the armed forces.

Since then, a record number of legal immigrants – 25,000 – have taken advantage of this fast track to citizenship, despite the risk of injury or death in war. Now, 40,000 more are eligible to request naturalization. At the end of 2005, 4,614 immigrants had obtained citizenship through armed service, compared to 749 in 2001, according to an Associated Press article.

For the first time since the Korean War, the U.S. immigration agency began conducting overseas military naturalization ceremonies and since then, 1,006 foreign-born soldiers received citizenship abroad.

Why, we wonder, is this such an attractive option for legal immigrants, immigrants who have their green cards, who are waiting to receive citizenship anyway?

Well, for one, it’s a whole lot faster. Recruiters are probably advertising perks like signing bonuses and expedited citizenship to green-card-holding men and women. The citizenship process takes many years, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, and the option of skipping past all the time and money it would cost to go through the process is definitely an understandable perk.

The government is definitely benefiting from Bush’s executive order, as the armed forces are quickly burning through available manpower in the Middle East. With signing bonuses at an all-time high for enlistees, it’s probably only a matter of time until we dangle citizenship in front of illegal immigrants as well.

The AP article pointed to other reasons for enlistment.

“Money for education, wanting to serve the country and to learn a skill are the top three motivations,” Douglas Smith of the U.S Army Recruiting Command said.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Daniel Kane also pointed to patriotism as a motivation for many immigrants seeking citizenship.

“There’s a strong surge of patriotism among immigrants who are serving. They are grateful to the United States and they want to give back,” Kane said in the article.

Still, we wonder if immigrants are presented with the bigger picture of what military service today, in our current world condition, entails. We also wonder if immigrants’ desperation to achieve citizenship is their overwhelming motivation.

We hope that the government is not exploiting immigrants by offering them expedited citizenship through enlistment. It’s important that they have all the information to make a good decision, rather than being pressured by recruiters with promises of money, glory and quick citizenship.

But if these men and women honestly have the desire to serve the United States in the armed forces, then by all means, they should be citizens. If they want to risk their lives for this country, which is an honorable choice, then they should get all the perks of U.S. citizenship.