US Army Lures Foreigners with Promise of Citizenship

US Army Lures Foreigners with Promise of Citizenship

By Cordula Meyer in Washington

10/22/07 "SPIEGEL" -- -- -More than 30,000 foreign troops are enlisted in the US Army, many of them serving in Iraq. Their reward for risking their lives for their adopted country is US citizenship.

When Anna Maria Clarke, 26, was a teenager living in the western German city of Mannheim, she already had a weakness for smart uniforms, particularly on American soldiers, and for war movies like "Full Metal Jacket." It was an attraction that Clarke, a German citizen, felt early on and still feels today.

The parents of 25-year-old Julieta Ortiz immigrated to the United States from Mexico City, dirt-poor but ambitious. They worked hard picking strawberries in California, determined that their daughter would have a better life. Four years ago, Julieta suddenly found a way to that better life -- a difficult path, but one that would lift her out of the poverty of her childhood.

Jose Figueira, 31, spent much of his life listening to his father proudly recount his experiences as a soldier in the Portuguese army. Figueira, who grew up in Massachusetts, yearned to have something he could be just as proud of. "I wanted to prove that I'm a good citizen, that I'm willing to stand up for everything I love about this country."

They may have different reasons for joining the US Armed Forces, but all three are now among the more than 30,000 foreign soldiers fighting for America -- not as Americans, but as a Mexican, a Portuguese and even a German. Without its foreign soldiers, the United States would have trouble coming up with enough troops to meet the demand in Iraq. The foreigners, for their part, take the dangerous job mainly for its biggest reward: US citizenship.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has granted US citizenship to 32,500 foreign soldiers. In July 2002, US President George W. Bush issued an executive order to expand existing legislation to offer a fast track to citizenship to foreigners who agree to fight for the US Armed Forces. About 8,000 non-Americans have joined the US military every year since then.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18603.htm

I met a former British soldier in my taxi one night that said he was basically promised citizenship and that our army paid better. This was almost 2 years ago.

and received his citizenship by fighting in the Civil War. So this is apparently nothing that new.

especially Irish. Just off the boat.

Some INS or pentagon person called about twenty years ago to offer citizenship posthumously to an ancestor who went through Ga with General Sherman thus helping to end the war. I remember clearly my father telling them to shove it straight up their ass.

It's the American Foreign Legion!

Man...

in fact, the motto of the Legion is "Legio Patria Nostra," or "The Legion Is Our Homeland".

Amazing how foreigners are willing to do what right wing armchair warriors, claiming to be so patriotic, are not.

and something tells me that when they are killed they aren't counted by the iecausualities either as the mercernaries I'm sure aren't, I may be wrong with both of these assertions but they both leave a lot of open ground there though for a lot of stuff to get covered up in/with