Attorney and associate professor at West Point Lt. Col. Margaret Stock declared immigrants “Essential to the Fight” in a recent report released by the Immigration Policy Center, or IPC.  Her report stated that as of June 30, 2009, there were 114,601 foreign-born individuals serving in the armed forces, representing 7.91 percent of the 1.4 million military personnel on active duty.  With 10,505 military members gaining citizenship in the 2009 fiscal year, the application process, expedited under the Bush administration after Sept. 11, 2001, authored more citizens through military service than any time since Vietnam.

Linguistic and cultural skills critical to the United States’ current wars have instructed military recruiters to embrace immigrants with temporary visas.  This includes students and refugees who have lived in the United States for a two-year minimum but bars any with a criminal record.  Previously, the military required a green card, a permit of permanent residence, but a one-year Army pilot program started in New York in February and expanding to California in May enlists 1,000 highly skilled recruits by the end of the year.

“This program is to meet shortfalls in certain critical skill areas,” said Don Wrenn, Public Affairs specialist for Seattle Army Recruiting.  Not new legislation but rather a dusted off piece of policy that allows widened recruitment during times of war as followed during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, Stock worked to renew the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, or MAVNI, as the program is named, through the Department of Defense.

“When I served, which would have been 1969, there was a number of Filipinos that served as stewards, and they did a great job,” Bob Schwartz, American Legion Department of Washington commander, said emphasizing the viability of military enlistment as a route to citizenship.

MAVNI soldiers include speakers of one or more languages from a list of 35, not including Spanish, and a lesser number of medical professionals.  These recruits may apply for citizenship upon honorable completion of one day’s employment but will lose their status upon failure to fulfill an approximate five-year term.  Choosing this course grants citizenship within six months while, outside the military, processing may slow to 15 years.  With the Los Angeles Times reporting over 7,000 applications received by May and 80 percent of the slots filled as early as July, according to military.com, success of the program previously set to end on Dec. 31 will expand into 2010 and includes recruiting offices in Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas.  An article in the New York Times states MAVNI may provide up to 14,000 Army volunteers a year, or nearly one in six new soldiers.

“It is a good idea,” Maria Fiorella Villanueva, E4 yeoman third class in the U.S. Coast Guard, said of her service path to citizenship.  “Some of my relatives have to pay more than 1,000 dollars just for … naturalization … . For us … it’s for free, so you don’t have to worry.”  Villanueva, an immigrant from the Philippines, applied for citizenship two months ago.