The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services announced in an official memo that it would not extend benefits to the families of deceased soldiers seeking posthumous citizenship.
“It is an honorary status in commemoration of the valor and the sacrifice of the deceased,” BCIS explained in the memo.
Immigration Services has already granted citizenship to the first Latino casualty of the war, Guatemalan José Gutiérrez, as well as Mexican José Angel Garibay who was killed in combat early on.
Both gained citizenship as part of a project of the U.S. government to naturalize soldiers who are legal residents of the country after their death in the war against Iraq, immigration authorities confirmed yesterday.
Ron Rogers, spokesperson for BCIS in Laguna Niguel, California, said that the certificates of citizenship would be turned in to military personnel of the respective bases where the soldiers were assigned so and later to the surviving family members.
“They are individuals who paid the ultimate price to be United States citizens,” said Rogers.
Rogers also stated that the certificates of citizenship for Mexican Jesús Alberto Suárez, a legal resident living in Escondido, California, Jorge González, of Mexican parents but born in California, and Mexican Francisco Martínez Flores, who was the last confirmed Latino casualty of the war, were being processed.
Rogers explained that in July of last year, thousands of soldiers gained United Stated citizenship after an Executive Order by President Bush to accelerate the process of citizenship during war time for soldiers who are legal residents of the United States.
“We’re talking about some 5,300 soldiers, from many different countries, who benefited from the President’s order,” said Rogers. An unofficial calculation indicated that in the armed forces there may be more than 35,000 legal residents.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act requires family-members of deceased soldiers to complete the Application for Posthumous Citizenship with Immigration Services as well as submit a certificate of military service and a death certificate.
