AP News, March 3rd, 2007
Six soldiers deployed to the Mexican border became U.S. citizens Friday, apparently the first troops to take advantage of expedited citizenship rules while deployed to keep out illegal immigrants.
The six members of the Texas National Guard were among those sent to aid the Border Patrol after President Bush called for 6,000 troops on the southwest border in May.
Pfc. Fabiola Jimenez, who came to the U.S. legally with her family when she was a teenager, said she had joined the National Guard in part because she knew it would expedite her citizenship application.
Citizenship will allow Jimenez to get a government job and enable her to sponsor relatives seeking citizenship, she said.
"I've been waiting for this forever," said the 23-year-old, clutching her bound citizenship certificate after the ceremony in U.S. District Court.
Jimenez, who is from Tarasco, Mexico, helped organize the citizenship applications for her and the other five guardsmen. Four others are from Mexico, and one is from the Pacific island nation of Palau.
Nearly 25,000 service members since Sept. 11, 2001, have taken advantage of an executive order signed in 2002 allowing personnel deployed for anti-terrorism duties to immediately apply for citizenship, skipping the previous one-year service period. Typically, noncitizens must wait three to five years before applying.
Jimenez and three others sworn in are believed to be the first to become eligible for expedited citizenship because of their work helping to guard the U.S.-Mexico border, said Master Sgt. Adolfo Gonzales, a Texas National Guard spokesman. The other two sworn in Friday were eligible after being activated to serve in Iraq.
