| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
LA City Council urges citizenship for noncitizen soldiers
Wednesday April 16, 2003LOS ANGELES (AP) The City Council passed a resolution Wednesday urging President Bush to immediately naturalize all noncitizen U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.
The unanimous vote supports a similar request Cardinal Roger Mahony made to Bush in a letter sent April 7. Mahony also asked that Bush consider citizenship for all foreign-born soldiers upon honorable discharge from the armed forces.
There are 31,000 ``green card soldiers'' serving in the military, according the Defense Department.
``It just seems incomprehensible that we're asking this ultimate sacrifice from them without granting the ultimate benefit of citizenship,'' Mahony told the 14 council members.
Mahony said he came up with the proposal while preparing for the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, a Guatemalan immigrant who was posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship after he was killed in Iraq.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn said immigrant soldiers should be awarded citizenship for ``risking their lives and fighting for this country and the freedom of the Iraqi people.''
``I believe that awarding citizenship after they have come home in a casket certainly gives them the respect that they were due, but it is too late and we need to do that immediately,'' Hahn said.
Several elected officials have introduced legislation in recent weeks to ease the citizenship application process for soldiers.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, has proposed a bill to give citizenship to surviving spouses and children of the dead soldiers. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is sponsoring a legislation in the U.S. Senate to waive the $300 application fee and cut the application process from three years to two.
In February, the City Council passed a resolution opposing a unilateral war against Iraq and urging Bush to exhaust all diplomatic options before committing military forces. Last month, after fighting began, the council voted for a resolution stating that Los Angeles ``expresses its deep and unbounded pride in the men and women of the United States armed forces, and its fervent hope for a swift conclusion to this conflict.''
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