Military Members Take Oath of Citizenship

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (NNS) -- Fourteen military personnel - 11 of them Sailors stationed at Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) - became U.S. citizens Oct. 11 in a special naturalization ceremony at NBVC Port Hueneme's Needham Theater.

"This feels pretty great," a smiling Logistics Specialist 1st Class Fluellen Umali of the Fleet Readiness Center Southwest, Detachment Point Mugu, said moments after the ceremony.

"He's one of us now," added his wife, Joanna, who attended the hour-long ceremony with their two children, ages 8 and 12.

Until the ceremony, Umali had been a citizen of the Philippines. That day, he renounced that citizenship and took the oath of allegiance to the United States.

More than 7,000 people affiliated with the U.S. military have become U.S. citizens this year.

Last year, a total of 700,000 people across the United States were naturalized, and 10,334 of them were affiliated with the military.

Julie Dunn, an immigration service officer based out of the San Fernando Valley, said the naturalization process can be expedited for members of the U.S. military. In fact, she said, during times of war, the process can require as little as one day of U.S. residency. Normally, it requires five years.

For some, the oath was a long time coming.

Steelworker 3rd Class Sheldon Smith of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 3 started the naturalization process three years ago, the same time he joined the Navy. His appointments with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were all set up, but he deployed to Afghanistan just days before his first meeting.

"I tried to reopen the case when I got back, but because I'd missed the appointment, it was a problem - a big problem," he said.

It didn't stop him from deploying to Spain, and it was there that he got the help he needed to reopen the case and start the process all over again.

A citizen of Jamaica, Smith grew up in New Jersey.

"My dad pushed me to take advantage of everything this country offered," he said. "Educationwise, everything - just run with it, he'd say."

Living in New Jersey and Jamaica, Smith's family couldn't attend, but Smith now has the ceremony on video.

"I'm glad this is finally over," he said. "It's one of the biggest milestones in my life."

Another new U.S. citizen who waited a long time to call himself that was Jaime Malagon, a 50-year-old sergeant in the California Army National Guard.

As a citizen of Spain, Malagon joined the Navy in 1984, eventually becoming a Navy SEAL with security clearance. His naturalization paperwork had been approved, and all that was left was the formality of taking the Oath of Allegiance. But just before the judge was to administer it, he deployed to Central America.

"At that point, everyone, including me, thought I was a U.S. citizen," he said.

He left the Navy in 1997 and joined the Army two years later. He was assigned to an anti-drug task force along the U.S. border with Mexico, a joint project with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Border Patrol, which conducted a background check. That's when Malagon learned he was still a citizen of Spain.

"They still let me work," Malagon said. "They just told me to make sure I took care of it."

But then came Iraq, and then came Kosovo, and then, in 2008, came an injury, followed by surgery a year later.
Today, Malagon is ready to leave the Armed Forces, and he'll do it as a U.S. citizen.

"I'm looking forward to spending time with my family," he said of his wife, Esperanza, and his 13-year-old son, Jaime Jr., both of whom attended the ceremony.

The 14 new citizens heard a taped message from President Barack Obama, who told them that "no dream is impossible," and urged them to "help write the next great chapter in American history."

Capt. Larry Vasquez, commanding officer of NBVC, also spoke to the new citizens, pointing out that as members of the military, they had already pledged to defend the United States and her people.

"Today," he said, "you are her people."

He said he felt privileged to be one of the first to address them as citizens of the United States.

"It is an honor to call you shipmates," he said. "It is an even greater honor to call you fellow citizens."

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For more news from Naval Base Ventura County, visit www.navy.mil/local/nbvc/.