bobdina
08-20-2010, 12:17 PM
Corps looks at easing path to citizenship
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 19, 2010 20:33:45 EDT
Foreign-born Marines are still largely on their own when it comes to applying to become U.S. citizens, but the Corps is considering options to ease the process.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has, for the past year, kept a team of immigration specialists at Fort Jackson, S.C., the Army’s biggest basic training camp, whose role is to sit down with new soldiers to begin the application from day one. The Navy naturalized its first recruit out of boot camp at a July 23 graduation ceremony at Recruit Training Center Great Lakes, Ill. The Air Force, where many jobs require security clearances, has the lowest volume of citizenship applications, and has not yet looked at starting the process in basic.
But the Corps has plenty of noncitizens, and plans to mirror the Army and Navy efforts are in the works. Marine Corps officials declined to comment on those plans.
“We’re taking it a little slower with the Marines,” said Debbie Rogers, military liaison with the USCIS, who described the Corps as “supportive of working in partnership” with her agency to help Marines before they hit the fleet.
The Corps “is looking at boot camp and School of Infantry as possibilities, because they are the two places where Marines cycle through, and they’re in one place during that time,” she said.
Until then, Marines must pursue the application process on their own, with help from a civilian immigration specialist at their base staff judge advocate’s office.
“If they want to do it, I’d say do it now. Don’t wait,” said Mitzi Lanier, the immigration coordinator at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who processes about 1,000 naturalization and immigration applications a year.
In July 2002, President George W. Bush signed an executive order for service during wartime, waiving the one-year waiting period for service members on duty since Sept. 11, 2001. This allowed service members with less than a year of service to apply sooner. Since then, the USCIS has naturalized more than 60,000 service members.
Processing times for active-duty naturalization cases average about eight weeks, Lanier said, compared with a couple of years ago when it took up to a year. And the application fee, which runs about $600, is waived for members of the military.
There are more than 4,500 non-U.S. citizen Marines on active duty, according to Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
Find out more online at http://www.uscis.gov/military.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/08/marine-marine-corps-looks-at-easing-citizenship-path-081910/
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 19, 2010 20:33:45 EDT
Foreign-born Marines are still largely on their own when it comes to applying to become U.S. citizens, but the Corps is considering options to ease the process.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has, for the past year, kept a team of immigration specialists at Fort Jackson, S.C., the Army’s biggest basic training camp, whose role is to sit down with new soldiers to begin the application from day one. The Navy naturalized its first recruit out of boot camp at a July 23 graduation ceremony at Recruit Training Center Great Lakes, Ill. The Air Force, where many jobs require security clearances, has the lowest volume of citizenship applications, and has not yet looked at starting the process in basic.
But the Corps has plenty of noncitizens, and plans to mirror the Army and Navy efforts are in the works. Marine Corps officials declined to comment on those plans.
“We’re taking it a little slower with the Marines,” said Debbie Rogers, military liaison with the USCIS, who described the Corps as “supportive of working in partnership” with her agency to help Marines before they hit the fleet.
The Corps “is looking at boot camp and School of Infantry as possibilities, because they are the two places where Marines cycle through, and they’re in one place during that time,” she said.
Until then, Marines must pursue the application process on their own, with help from a civilian immigration specialist at their base staff judge advocate’s office.
“If they want to do it, I’d say do it now. Don’t wait,” said Mitzi Lanier, the immigration coordinator at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who processes about 1,000 naturalization and immigration applications a year.
In July 2002, President George W. Bush signed an executive order for service during wartime, waiving the one-year waiting period for service members on duty since Sept. 11, 2001. This allowed service members with less than a year of service to apply sooner. Since then, the USCIS has naturalized more than 60,000 service members.
Processing times for active-duty naturalization cases average about eight weeks, Lanier said, compared with a couple of years ago when it took up to a year. And the application fee, which runs about $600, is waived for members of the military.
There are more than 4,500 non-U.S. citizen Marines on active duty, according to Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
Find out more online at http://www.uscis.gov/military.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/08/marine-marine-corps-looks-at-easing-citizenship-path-081910/