CNA Researchers Examine Role Of Non-Citizens In Military

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — A newly released study from The CNA Corporation’s Center for Naval Analyses shows that legal permanent residents, or green card holders, are highly successful members of the military—a fact that bodes well for the Department of Defense as it examines future recruiting prospects.the military services to determine which Department of Defense retirement plan will best serve their needs as retirees—a decision that could amount to a difference in retirement benefits of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The study points out that today’s foreign-born U.S. population is the largest in history, and immigrants will fuel much of the future growth among America’s youth. The authors conclude that this population could help alleviate recruiting gaps and meet current and future personnel needs, while also providing needed opportunities for new immigrants. Of the 16 million foreign-born people who came to the United States between 1990 and 2002, almost a quarter were under age 21.

Legal permanent residents (LPRs) have been eligible to enlist in the military since the Revolutionary War. Today, about 35,000 non-citizens currently serve in the military and about 8,000 enlist every year. The study’s authors found that non-citizens have high rates of success while serving—they are far more likely, for example, to fulfill their enlistment obligations than their U.S.-born counterparts.

Although recruiters’ efforts can sometimes be undermined by post-September 11 security concerns, policymakers have also, since 2001, continued to create opportunities for immigrants to enlist and obtain citizenship more quickly. A July 2002 executive order issued by President Bush allows non-citizens serving in the military to apply for expedited citizenship after only one day of active-duty service, and provisions in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act reduce the peacetime waiting period for citizenship application.

The policy changes have made applying for citizenship while serving in the military simpler and more attractive to prospective recruits, and the military services have implemented their own incentive programs—including fluency training and special positions for non-citizens skilled in languages other than English.

But despite a large pool of roughly 1.5 million non-citizens, there are obstacles to their recruitment. The military services require that at least 90 percent of its recruits have a high school diploma, and many recent immigrants have not completed high school. Limited English proficiency among non-citizens is another challenge.

The study’s authors recommend that in order to further facilitate recruitment and retention of non-citizens, the Department of Defense should:

• Develop recruiting materials aimed at non-citizens that explain eligibility for expedited citizenship, the benefits of filing for citizenship while in the military, and the benefits of attaining citizenship.
• Consider more structured, installation-based assistance that would help non-citizen service members and their dependents with the citizenship process.
• Investigate, through the Office of the Secretary of Defense, whether more uniform treatment of non-citizens across the military services is needed. Military policy is generally uniform across the services, but in matters of recruitment, reenlistment, and use of non-citizen service members, the policies of each service branch differ.

The paper is available for downloading from The CNA Corporation’s website, www.cna.org.