Willow Glen Resident
Cover Story
Photograph by Vicki Thompson
Pamela Anderson-Brulé and her husband Pierre Brulé look over plans at Anderson Brulé Architects in downtown San Jose, where the two work together. For the past 10 years, the family has been struggling to help his oldest son Laurent Brulé, who was born in France, gain U.S. citizenship--something he was promised for serving in the military.
Joining Forces
Resident leads citizenship battle for military son
By Stephen Baxter
Laurent Brulé spent more than seven years in the U.S. Army, serving as a translator in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell and fighting in an infantry division in Operation Desert Storm.
Now more than a decade after his discharge, he faces bureaucratic hurdles that rival the hardships he had in combat: He is trying to become a U.S. citizen.
Brulé, born in France, came to California when his father married a San Jose woman in 1984. He graduated from Gunn High School in Palo Alto in 1987 and attended Foothill College for two years before joining the U.S. Army.
He moved to Paris when his military contract expired, and he still lives there with his 1-year-old daughter Lea. Brulé says each visit back to San Jose has become an ordeal with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement checks.
About four years ago, he lost his green card but flew in to San Francisco International Airport to visit his family. Trying to explain to ICE officials that he was a former U.S. soldier was an exercise in futility--and humiliation, he said.
"They didn't give a damn about me," Brulé said recently.
"I said, 'I'm a combat veteran,' and they said, 'OK, fine, sir. But you're not a U.S. citizen.' I felt like any other alien coming to the U.S.--I was no one to them."
After about five hours of negotiation, he was released, but the principle of the matter irks him.
It also disturbs his stepmother, Pamela Anderson-Brulé, president of a San Jose architecture firm that helped design the Martin Luther King Jr. Library downtown. She also lives in Willow Glen and is a San Jose Rotary member.
When U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren spoke at a Rotary meeting in August, Anderson-Brulé stood up and described Laurent's situation and asked what could be done.
Lofgren, a seven-term Congresswoman who represents most of San Jose, said she has thought a lot about the matter.
"If someone wants to go risk their life for their United States, I think that says more about their patriotism than a person who is an American by an accident of birth," Lofgren said. When asked whether noncitizen soldiers should have fewer obstacles in becoming naturalized, she replied, "I think we ought to have a system to do that."
Changing the law
In July 2002, President Bush signed an executive order to speed up the citizenship process for noncitzens who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001.
Amendments to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act also aim to facilitate the process for soldiers and sailors who served in "periods of conflict." Those periods cover World Wars I and II, the Korean War and Vietnam.
For noncitizen soldiers who served from 1978 to 2001, the act makes no special arrangements. These soldiers who left the military prior to 9-11 are not entitled to expedited citizenship under the current law. Noncitizens who fought in Desert Storm, or in undeclared actions in Grenada, Panama, Somalia and other areas are in the same position.
"Many people aren't aware that you can fight in the military for the other guy's country," said Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Now Brulé is "just like any other [noncitizen]," she said.
He has to apply for citizenship and gets no special treatment, she added.
Brulé, who is 40, has another strike against him.
He does not live permanently in the United States and doesn't return every six months, which Rummery said was against the spirit of the green card. Part of obtaining citizenship requires that he have a U.S. address for five years and physically be here at least 30 of the 60 months.
Brulé said his challenges with immigration officials have discouraged him from traveling to the U.S.
His green card expires in 2015, but officials could pull it each time outside of six-month time frames.
"I have lived in the U.S. for many years, and I took an oath to serve and protect the United States when I joined the Army," Brulé said. "I respected my oath, now it's time for the U.S. to respect its promises."
Lofgren is chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law. In November, she said she would have immigration attorneys look in to expedited citizenship eligibility for soldiers who served before 2001 by making Bush's executive order retroactive. The change, Lofgren said, may be rolled in to a future immigration bill.
Recruiting
At the Army recruiting office on Story Road in San Jose, recruiters say illegal immigrants typically inquire about joining the armed forces at least a few times a month.
Potential recruits have to present an I-551 form to prove their legal residence, but most don't have it and cannot begin processing.
Brulé said his recruiter in the late '80s assured him that his road to citizenship would be short. When he finished boot camp in Georgia and was stationed in Goppingen, Germany, he was told that he couldn't begin the process because he wasn't on U.S. soil. After Desert Storm, he was sent to Fort Polk in Louisiana, but still his requests fell on deaf ears.
Other noncitizen recruits have had better experiences, including Laurent's younger brother, Matthieu.
He joined the Marine Corps in 2003, and was stationed in Camp Pendleton on the northern border of San Diego County. He caught flak in boot camp for his French background, especially after France opposed the war in Iraq.
Before his tour in Afghanistan, he was sent to a base in Hawaii, where he pursued his quest for citizenship.
Less than three weeks before being sent into combat, he found some sympathetic officials who sped up the testing and forms. He took the oath of citizenship just before being shipped out.
"It was important for me because I thought if I'm going to fight for this country, I wanted to say that I was a citizen," Matthieu said.
He rose to the rank of sergeant.
Now 33, he lives near Alum Rock with his wife, and is in training to join the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. He said there ought to be more military administrators to help veterans get their paperwork done, and a more uniform process across the branches of the armed forces would be helpful.
"Regardless of where they're from, people willing to defend this country should be granted citizenship. I feel very strongly about that."
Military style
Since Bush's executive order, each military branch is supposed to provide a point of contact for service members applying for expedited citizenship, but they carry it out in different ways.
The Navy and Marine Corps have judge advocates general and civilian lawyers to help noncitizens, while the Air Force and Army delegated the process to their personnel commands, according to a study by the Center for Naval Analyses and Institute for Public Research.
The study praised recent efforts to streamline the process for service members, but it suggested that more could be done. The Department of Defense should consider more structured assistance at each military installation, it said, and develop materials that more clearly explain eligibility requirements.
In 2004, a separate law passed to eliminate application fees and allow military citizenship applications to be finalized at U.S. embassies, consulates and military bases around the world. A free phone number, 877.247.4645, also launched in summer 2007 to help service members and their families get information on immigration and citizenship matters.
For foreign soldiers who served in the '80s and '90s, such as Laurent, the quest continues.
"When you join the military, you train not just to go to war and to follow orders, but to defend the Constitution. I was willing to do that with no problem," he said. "I consider America my country."
