Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the news that 10 members of our Armed Forces who died in…”

“Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the news that 10 members of our Armed Forces who died in combat were not U.S. citizens, several bills have been introduced to either ease the naturalization requirements of legal permanent residents in the Armed Forces or to provide immigration benefits to the surviving family members of those killed in service to America, or both. We can never adequately express our gratitude to those noncitizen members of our military who made the ultimate sacrifice, but we can bring reasonable changes to the naturalization process for other permanent resident service members willing to make the same sacrifice and to provide immigration benefits to family members of those who died. The Committee on the Judiciary has worked closely with those who have introduced bills on this issue, including the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), as well as the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims ranking member, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), to come up with a bipartisan compromise bill.”