April 13, 2006
Fast Tracking
Via Kevin Drum, Max Boot has a modest proposal for the immigration conflagration:
Lost in the uproar has been an idea so meritorious that it should win universal assent: Create a fast track toward citizenship for those willing to serve a stint in the United States armed forces.
What Kevin doesn't catch but a commenter of his does is, this plan is already on the books:
Naturalization Applicants Who Have Served Honorably in Any Specified Period of Armed Conflict with Hostile Foreign ForcesThis is the only section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that allows persons who have not been lawfully admitted for permanent residence to file their own application for naturalization. Any person who has served honorably during a qualifying time may file an application at any time in his or her life if, at the time of enlistment, reenlistment, extension of enlistment or induction, such person shall have been in the United States, the Canal Zone, American Samoa, or Swains Island, or on board a public vessel owned or operated by the United States for noncommercial service, whether or not he has been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.
Emphasis mine. As another of his commenters notes, the first US soldier to die in Iraq was an illegal immigrant.
Posted by ben at April 13, 2006 10:19 AM