Immigrant Marine in life, U.S. citizen in death
Marine Cpl. Roberto Cazarez is the 144th immigrant military service member to get citizenship posthumously since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
December 7, 2012
CAMP PENDLETON — Marine Cpl. Roberto Cazarez applied for U.S. citizenship shortly before he deployed for combat duty in Afghanistan.
The expedited process allows enlistees who are permanent legal residents, like Cazarez was, to go to the head of the line for citizenship.
Cazarez's application was pending at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when he was killed by a roadside bomb blast in March, just weeks before his battalion was due to return to Camp Pendleton.
On Thursday, in a short but emotional ceremony, Cazarez's widow was presented with a certificate indicating that her husband had been posthumously awarded his U.S. citizenship, retroactive to the day that he was killed.
Cazarez, who was 24 when he died, is the 144th military service member to be posthumously awarded citizenship since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — more than in any other period of U.S. combat, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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