They enlisted to gain citizenship. Big Army had other ideas.
Source: Military.com
5 May 2020 Military.com | By Richard Sisk
Six soldiers have filed a class-action lawsuit charging that the U.S. promise of citizenship for service — dating back to the nation’s founding — has been broken by the Pentagon’s restrictive policies on naturalization.
The six non-citizen troops, who all enlisted in the Army under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, or MAVNI, alleged that new and lengthy security checks for possible terrorist ties and other measures have effectively blocked them from obtaining citizenship.
The suit, filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, charges that Defense Department policies enacted in 2017 “unlawfully obstructed the ability of thousands of service members to obtain U.S. citizenship, placing them in a state of personal and professional limbo.”
“I took an oath to protect this country, and I’m doing my best to live up to the values of the Army,” said Pfc. Ange Samma, originally from Burkina Faso and one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
“It’s been frustrating and heartbreaking not to obtain my citizenship as promised, but I will continue to honor my commitment,” Samma, now serving with the 339th Quartermaster Company at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, said in a statement accompanying the suit.
Government lawyers signaled they would vigorously contest the suit, which was initially filed April 24 in federal court for the District of Columbia and names the DoD and Defense Secretary Mark Esper as defendants.
The suit alleges that DoD and Esper “have adopted an unlawful policy of withholding certifications of plaintiffs’ honorable service, which they require to apply to naturalize based on their ongoing military service.”
“As a result, defendants are denying thousands of men and women in uniform the U.S. citizenship that Congress has long promised to non-citizens serving in our military,” the suit said.
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