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Immigrant Troops Important To Military

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By KEITH MORELLI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 18, 2008

Updated: 04/18/2008 12:22 am

Arturo Huerta-Cruz gave his life for a country he was still working to make his own.

Huerta-Cruz, a 23-year-old soldier from Clearwater who was killed Monday by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, didn't enjoy all the rights and privileges of an American citizen.

But a military eager to fill its ranks during an unpopular war welcomed him and the estimated 39,000 service personnel who are not U.S. citizens.

Their numbers amount to about 7 percent of the U.S. military. The largest share of them are from Mexico, like Huerta-Cruz, who came here at age 7 and attended Countryside High School.

Attracting people such as Huerta-Cruz pays dividends for the military in ways beyond the numbers, according to CNA, a nonprofit research group, which does analyses for the federal government.

"Non-citizen-service members offer several benefits to the military," a 2005 CNA report says. "First, they are more diverse than citizen recruits - not just racially and ethnically - but also linguistically and culturally. This diversity is particularly valuable as the United States faces the challenges of the global war on terrorism."

Those views are echoed by Kevin R. Johnson, professor at the University of California, Davis and an author on immigration issues.

"The military gains by having eager, enthusiastic immigrants serving in the ranks," Johnson said. "One of the things people don't realize is that many immigrants are hyperpatriotic. They come from a place where the freedoms they have here are not available where they came from."

Sept. 11 Attacks Sparked Recruiting

Recruiting foreign nationals into the U.S. military is a practice as old as the military itself. They fought the British in the Continental Army and have served in nearly every conflict since.

Recruitment spiked in modern times after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Many joined up to take advantage of a government program started in 2002 that makes it easier for noncitizens and their families to obtain citizenship.

Since then, dozens of noncitizens killed in action have been granted posthumous citizenship, which opens the door for relatives living here legally to become citizens more quickly. More than 660,000 people have been granted citizenship in the past 146 years because of military service, CNA said.

This wasn't a factor in the decision by Huerta-Cruz to join the military.

"He was going to become a U.S. citizen this year anyway," said Roger Cruz, a cousin. "He didn't enlist because of that.

"He wanted to experience something else. He wanted to find out what the Army was. He enlisted because of what he believed in. He believed in democracy and that's what he wanted to die for, our freedom."

When he died in a blast about 100 miles north of Baghdad, Huerta-Cruz became the second Bay area resident who wasn't a U.S. citizen to die in action in Iraq.

Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin Waruinge was 22 when he was killed Aug. 3, 2005. A bomb hit his vehicle near Haditha. While he was overseas, his parents and two younger brothers became citizens. They had come here from Kenya in 1997.

Recruiters are struggling to meet goals as the popularity of the war in Iraq has declined. Only 22 percent of Americans considered it the wrong decision after the March 2003 invasion. That number has grown to 54 percent five years later, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Citizenship Used To Lure Troops

Against these sentiments, military recruiters use the path to citizenship as a lure to keep their numbers up.

Among the branches of the military, the Navy has the most noncitizens, followed by the Marines, the Army and the Air Force.

Since 2005, the Army has seen recruitment of noncitizens decline even as overall recruitment remained steady.

"We have no official idea why it dropped," said Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith at Fort Knox, Ky.

The military does what it can to enlist qualified fighting men and women, Smith said, but noncitizens have restrictions on entry and advancement, he noted. These include:

•They must be permanent resident aliens, holding green cards.

•They may serve only one tour, unless they become citizens in that time.

•They are not eligible for jobs requiring high-level security clearances.

Otherwise, the military is a big tent embracing noncitizens as well as citizens, in the view of many who have studied it.

"They think of themselves as soldiers, not immigrant soldiers," said Johnson, the UC Davis professor, whose specialties are public interest law and Chicano studies.

"One of the good things about the military is its sense of community and camaraderie that crosses racial, class and social lines."

Retired Army Lt. Col. George K. Smith, who lives in Oldsmar, agreed.

Troops don't delineate who is a citizen and who is not when on the battlefield, said Smith, who worked alongside soldiers not yet citizens during his 23 years of service.

Proper training takes care of any differences in combat capabilities, he said. Smith views citizenship as a great recruiting tool.

"Individuals serving in our armed services now are all volunteers," he said. "In my day, we were good, but these young men and women today far exceed what we were.

"They are smarter, better educated and more devoted to serving this country."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib

.com.

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