The number of foreigners serving in the U.S. military who become U.S. citizens is reportedly declining, with the latest statistics showing the level at its lowest in eight years — even as applications appear on the rise.
The Virginian-Pilot, citing data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reports in the fiscal year ending in September, 7,709 service members became citizens, down from 9,239 the year before, a drop of about 17 percent, and the lowest since 2007, when 5,895 were naturalized.
In Norfolk, where one of the two immigration offices in Virginia is located, 391 military naturalization applications were approved in the first three quarters of the fiscal 2015 — a 35 percent drop from the same period a year earlier, the Pilot reports.
Yet pending applications are increasing, one immigration official tells the Pilot.
"Our workload seems to be pretty consistent, if not increasing," Frank Reffel, the Norfolk immigration field office director, tells the Pilot.
"There are certain categories of military personnel whose numbers are increasing, doubling and tripling. We haven't seen a drop. We don't have a drop correlating to 17 percent. That's probably because of our location. We have a pretty constant stream of candidates."
In the first three quarters of the 2015 fiscal year, there was an average of 245 pending applications, up from 218 during the same time the previous year, the Pilot reports.
Norfolk is one of the five busiest in the country for military naturalizations, along with those in Chicago, Oklahoma City, Atlanta and Charleston, S.C., the Pilot reports.
Citing Department of Defense figures, the Pilot reports about 5,000 foreigners enlist in the U.S. military every year; about 25,000 foreign citizens are on active duty, in the reserves or in the National Guard.
Anyone who is a lawful permanent resident can join the military, the Pilot notes, and after 9/11, the path to citizenship was expedited under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush.
More than 109,000 foreign members of the military have become citizens since then, the Pilot reports.
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