Defense Secretary Robert Gates has authorized the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to recruit certain legal residents whose critical medical and language skills are “vital to the national interest,” officials said, using for the first time a law passed three years ago.
Gates’ action enables the services to start a one-year pilot program to find up to 1,000 foreigners who have lived in the states legally for at least two years. The new recruits into the armed forces would get accelerated treatment in the process toward becoming U.S. citizens in return for military service in the United States or abroad.
This program could benefit large number of foreign born medical professionals, like Nurses, PT’s and dermatologists currently in the US waiting in line to become residents and Citizens. The government expects that among those who will be interested in the new effort are doctors with work visas who are employed at hospitals around the country.