For at least one sergeant in the U.S. military, this year’s Veterans Day may take on more significance than any other day to commemorate military service members.
This week, Sergeant Ki Tak Kim, 44th medical brigade, 261st Multifunctional Medical Battalion, 36th Area Support Medical Company, will raise his right hand to take the Oath of Citizenship — a pledge that immigrants must take to become naturalized citizens.
Kim came to the United States from South Korea at the age of 15 and worked at various jobs before deciding to join the U.S. Army. When Kim was 22 years old in September 2007, he joined as a combat medic and was first stationed in North Carolina, then deployed to Afghanistan for 13 months. He later moved back to Virginia where he worked at a Target store. Now, he’s studying to become a pilot.
As a military service member, Kim’s naturalization application process was expedited, which makes sense given that military members are deployed all around the world and are affected by complex U.S. immigration laws.
There are two laws that allow military service members to naturalize more quickly than their civilian counterparts — one through the “wartime” military naturalization procedure and another through the “peacetime” military naturalization procedure. Under the wartime process, service members who serve honorably may naturalize almost immediately after they’ve spent time in specific periods of conflict. Under the peacetime provision, anyone with a green card and one year of military service can apply for the naturalization process.
Kim is excited about the naturalization ceremony because he can finally vote for the first time. “When I was in the army, I already felt like I was an American,” Kim told ThinkProgress, noting that one of the core reasons that he took the additional step to apply for naturalization was that he otherwise wouldn’t have been to have input in local and federal government.
“I guess now this makes me a U.S. citizen on paper,” Kim said. “As I grow older, it feels like this is my country. After that, I started looking at local governments and pollsters… now I look at the policies and what [politicians] want to change.”
Kim said that he’ll likely vote for the Republican party in the 2016 presidential election. Though he hasn’t made any clear choices, he did note that “as an immigrant I like Jeb Bush better than Donald Trump in the Republican party.“
Since 2001, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency has welcomed 109,321 members of the military with naturalization ceremonies. This Veterans Day, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency will hold about 130 naturalization ceremonies around the world for veterans, current service members, and military spouses.