Army Recruiter Qiang Wang Speaks With Chinese Student Si-xing Zheng
Wei Wei Wants to Join Military–Pictured With Recruiter Qiang Wang
(World Journal/Zi Yuan Gao) The U.S. Military Accessions Vital to the Natl Interest (MAVNI) allows certain non-citizens who are legally present in the United States to join the military and immediately apply for U.S. Citizenship without first obtaining permanent residency status.
The MAVNI program is only available to legal aliens possessing critical skills–physicians, nurses and those proficient in certain languages with associated cultural backgrounds.
Non-citizens have served proudly in the military since the Revolutionary War–the ‘Lodge Act of 1950’ permitted non-citizen Eastern Europeans to enlist between 1950-1959
Today about 24,000 non-citizens are serving on active duty and about 5,000 legal permanent residents enlist in the Armed Forces annually. Today’s service members are eligible for expedited citizenship pursuant to a July, 2000 Executive Order and the military services have worked closely with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to streamline citizenship processing for service members.
Since 9/11 over 78,000 American Heroes have attained their citizenship while serving our country.
More here on MAVNI Program –Dept of Defense
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