May 21, 2002 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Even if you’re not a U.S. citizen, Uncle Sam wants you. About 47,500 military personnel are noncitizens, roughly 4 percent of the total, and the Pentagon is recruiting more.

“We recruit everywhere. We like to look like America and recruit anyone who is qualified,” said Jim Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman.

Cassella said the noncitizens must have green cards certifying they are legally in the country. They may serve only a single term of enlistment – two to four years – before applying for citizenship and cannot hold a military job that requires a security clearance. The same legal residents are barred from working as civilian airport screeners in the Sept. 11 aftermath.

Some noncitizen soldiers say they thought defending the United States automatically made them an American.

Alberto Castillo learned the hard way that isn’t the case. He left Chihuahua, Mexico, as a young child and has lived in America for nearly 50 years, four of which were spent in the Army and 21 in the National Guard.

Nobody ever told him he wasn’t a citizen until he applied for a civil service job after leaving active duty. He was referred to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which told him he needed to apply for citizenship.

“If the military is picking up people left and right, they should make you a citizen automatically,” said Castillo, 55, of San Antonio. He is applying for citizenship now.

Marine Lance Cpl. Karina Bejarano, 24, also mistakenly believed she was a citizen.

“You have to swear in and swear to defend this country. I would figure you do that and boom-boom, you become a citizen,” said Bejarano, who was born in Peru and moved to the United States when she was 10. She plans to apply for citizenship next month.

Maj. Ben Owens, a Pentagon spokesman, said there is no policy requiring recruiters to discuss citizenship.

The military does provide a faster route to citizenship. Legal permanent residents may become U.S. citizens after serving in the military for three years; the wait for civilians is five years. But their service does not exempt them from civics and English proficiency tests or immigration fees.

Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, has written legislation to reduce the required military service to two years, waive fees and allow soldiers to go through the citizenship processes at U.S. embassies. Frost said that under current policy, noncitizen soldiers stationed abroad must pay their way back to the United States for citizenship tests and their naturalization oath.

“If people serve two years honorably in the military, certainly they should be able to become citizens,” said Frost, who is married to a two-star Army general. “Anyone putting his or her life on the line to defend the country has established that he or she is a great American.”

Frost will try this week to include the measure in an emergency spending bill.

Selective Service System Director Alfred Rascon was a noncitizen when he served in Vietnam. He believes changes are needed to make it easier for noncitizen soldiers to become citizens.

Born in Mexico, Rascon was awarded the Medal of Honor – the highest military honor – in 1995 for saving the lives of two men by covering them with his own body and taking fire during a 1966 skirmish.

“What was belittling to me was that here I am, probably six months after I left the service, having to come back and take a test on my loyalty, having to be asked questions, and I’d already been wounded twice,” said Rascon, who became a citizen in 1967.

Frost’s bill would not remove the testing requirement.

Roughly one-fifth of the 3,458 Medals of Honor awarded have gone to foreign-born soldiers, according to the Medal of Honor Society.

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On the Net:

Rep. Martin Frost: http://www.house.gov/frost/

Congressional Medal of Honor Society: http://www.cmohs.org

Selective Service System: http://www.sss.gov/