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Many who serve for U.S. aren't citizens

GABRIELA RICO
Statesman Journal

January 22, 2006

He fought for a country that was not his.

And earlier this month, Jorge Arias, a U.S. soldier for three years, became a United States citizen.

The question is trite, but the 26-year-old Keizer man has an answer.

"My family has had so many opportunities in this country," Arias said. "That's why I'm willing to serve. I truly appreciate and know what we have here."

He was born in Mexico City and spent most of his childhood in San Bernardino, Calif., before moving to Silverton during his senior year of high school.

After graduating from Silverton High School in 1998, Arias tried to enlist in the Oregon National Guard, but he had only a work visa, not a green card, and had to wait.

He applied for a green card, enrolled at Chemeketa Community College and volunteered with Silverton police and firefighters.

A green card confers permanent-residency status on a noncitizen, and it is a prerequisite for one to enlist in the U.S. armed forces.

Four years later, Arias received his green card and enlisted in the National Guard. The following year, he was in Iraq.

"For me, it was a learning experience," Arias said of his yearlong deployment. "I see it with a positive perspective ... the good things that we did and the good things we accomplished there."

Reaction from the Iraqi people amused him.

"It was interesting because I was the only Hispanic in my platoon, and people would see my skin color and ask me where I was from," Arias said. "They knew I was a U.S. soldier, but they wanted to know what country I came from."

When he would tell people that he was from Mexico, the reaction was always the same.

"They would get excited and say, 'Oh, you're Mexican,' and they would ask me if I play soccer," Arias said with a laugh. "They were always inviting me to play soccer with them."

Among his fellow soldiers, there was admiration.

"We were all the same. When we're there, it's like we're brothers," Arias said. "Guys in my unit would say, 'What are you doing here? You're here with us, shoulder to shoulder with us, fighting. We can't believe you're not a U.S. citizen.'"

The number of noncitizens in the military has grown since 2000.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, there are 36,740 noncitizens in the U.S. military.

These immigrants represent about 3 percent of the armed forces, but the numbers have grown by about one-third since 2000 and recently have accounted for almost 5 percent of new enlistees, according to the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

The majority comes from Mexico, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea and Iran, according to immigration experts.

Some think this is a negative trend.

"As the proportion of noncitizens in the armed forces grows, there is the real possibility that defending America will become 'work Americans won't do,'" said Mark Krikorian, the executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies. "After all, it wasn't that long ago that hotel and construction workers were almost all American-born."

Krikorian expressed concern that cuts in pay and benefits, coupled with the prospect of combat, may make voluntary military service unappealing to U.S. citizens.

In July 2002, President Bush signed an executive order to expedite naturalization for noncitizens serving on active duty during wartime.

Instead of expediting citizenship, Krikorian thinks military service should be a privilege only for U.S. citizens.

Arias disagrees and said that when he walked into the federal courthouse in uniform and took his oath of citizenship, other immigrants looked at him with pride.

"The other people that were there looked at me like, 'See, we're not just people from other countries here to take U.S. jobs away. ... We're not just a burden to the United States. We are contributing,'" he said. "I sensed it from them; I could see it in their eyes."

grico@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6815