House Offers Bill to Extend Path to Citizenship to Family Members of Military Personnel
While comprehensive immigration reform has been bandied about since 2005 and will likely become a major issue for the next president of the U.S., the issue and its ill effects are not going anywhere in the present. News of greater authority granted to local law enforcement officials to crack down on the arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants has only been tempered by the general public's consensus behind the tremendous value of immigrants to the communities in which they reside in great numbers, especially in the Southwest U.S.
Some federal lawmakers from this area are rallying behind a bill introduced by California Representative Zoe Lofgren that would address one distinct problem with current U.S. immigration policies and their adverse effect on members of the armed services.
Currently, legal immigrants can gain an expedited path to citizenship through service in the military during wartime, a process that takes less than one year. However, many legally-immigrated soldiers have family members or whole families that have faced deportation because of their own undocumented status. The lawmakers supporting Lofgren's bill believe that such a situation is an embarrassment both to the United States and to its military.
The bill would write into the law the current path to citizenship available to those serving in the military, and would extend such benefits to all armed service members during peacetime as well. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security would have wider discretion in including immediate family members in the citizenship process, an action that would remedy the problems identified by these members of Congress that have cropped up during the current War in Iraq.
U.S. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Margaret Stock testified on Capitol Hill on behalf of the bill, stating that she believes that the bill would help address some important personal issues related to immigration among active-duty soldiers.
Stock attacked head-on the notion that so-called "amnesty" like this would be bad for the country: "The term amnesty is like calling somebody a commie," she said. "It's like a dirty word these days. For foreign policy reasons we grant so-called amnesty for lots of people. … It makes just as much sense that we do this for military families."
Stock is correct, in fact; special immigration status is granted regularly for political or social reasons to asylees from all over the world, and such permanent residents are qualified to apply for citizenship like any other individual with the proper qualifications. During an unpopular war that has seen deployment times and stop-loss actions skyrocket, as well as recruitment gradually sink, this immigration bill could create a bit more incentive for individuals to enter into military service and enjoy just one more benefit that comes with it.