That's US legal aliens who have served in our military and then wait lengthy periods of time to get US citizenship.

About 7,200 service members or people who have been recently discharged have citizenship applications pending, but neither the Department of Defense nor Citizenship and Immigration Services keeps track of how long they have been waiting. Immigration lawyers and politicians say they have received a significant number of complaints about delays because of background checks, misplaced paperwork, confusion about deployments and other problems.

"I've pretty much given up on finding out where my paperwork is, what's gone wrong, what happened to it," said Abdool Habibullah, 27, a Guyanese immigrant who first applied for citizenship in 2005 upon returning from a tour in Iraq and was honorably discharged from the Marines as a sergeant. "If what I've done for this country isn't enough for me to be a citizen, then I don't know what is."

The long waits are part of a broader problem plaguing the immigration service, which was flooded with 2.5 million applications for citizenship and visas last summer -- twice as many as the previous year -- in the face of 66 percent fee increases that took effect July 30. Officials have estimated that it will take an average of 18 months to process citizenship applications from legal immigrants through 2010, up from seven months last year.

But service members and veterans are supposed to go to the head of the line. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush signed an executive order allowing noncitizens on active duty to file for citizenship right away, instead of having to first complete three years in the military. The federal government has since taken several steps to speed up the process, including training military officers to help service members fill out forms, assigning special teams to handle the paperwork, and allowing citizenship tests, interviews and ceremonies to take place overseas.

At the same time, post-9/11 security measures, including tougher guidelines for background checks that are part of the naturalization process, have slowed things down.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which checks the names of citizenship applicants against those in its more than 86 million investigative files, has been overwhelmed, handling an average of 90,000 name-check requests a week. In the fiscal year that ended in September, the F.B.I. was asked to check 4.1 million names, at least half of them for citizenship and green card applicants, a spokesman said.

"Most soldiers clear the checks within 30 to 60 days, or 60 to 90 days," said Leslie B. Lord, the Army's liaison to Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that processes citizenship applications. "But even the soldier with the cleanest of records, if he has a name that's very similar to one that's in the F.B.I. bad-boy and bad-girl list, things get delayed."

That shouldn't happen. These men and women have put their lives on the line to serve and protect our country. Granting them citizenship shouldn't take four years as it did in one soldier's case.

There are forms, the N-426, are supposed to designate these applications. It seems to me our government is letting down these soldiers, but Immigration does that with so many classes of people it is par for the course unfortunately.

One United States Senator has a proposal-

After hearing complaints from at least half a dozen service members over the past three months, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York has drafted a bill to create a special clearinghouse to ensure that applications from active and returning members of the military are processed quickly and smoothly.

I don't know about you, but I favor Senator Schumer's plan. Check this post of mine, I've been advocating for some time that our military members get expedited treatment(Plus discounted fees) with any immigration matters they have. Not just those becoming citizens, but ones who marry when stationed overseas and are applying for their spouse to immigrate to America. I was in this particular situation 18 years ago. Pardon me, but its a royal pain in the ass. One milblogger who I like but prefers not to blog about his personal life, has told me of his immigration hassles involving his Korean born wife, and his being constantly moved around by the Army. If G is living in CA when he applies for his wife to immigrate and then G moves to NC, he has to re-apply because a different service centers handles applications for those different states. It is madness.

Just once it is nice to see the MSM to report the plight our military faces, instead of the whining of other citizenship applicants and their advocates over a few months delay.