> You're wrong about the military. There are a surprising number of non-citizens in the military. As a matter of fact, about a year or two ago, a law was passed to speed up the citizen process for non-citizens serving in the military.

Yeah, I had half a thought I was wrong about that. But I know that as a general rule, it's true that most national armed forces don't like hiring mercenaries (people fighting for a country other than their own). As an example, the only non-citizens in the British armed forces are the two units of Gurkhas (Engineers and Rifles), who are Nepalese. Even those units that used to be made up of mercenaries - such as the King's Own German Lancers (the "Redcoats" fielded during the American Rebellion) - are now either disbanded or manned with citizens.

I thought that America was taking the same approach, especially as serving in a foreign military is one of the things that US citizenship can be revoked for, which suggests that they don"t like the idea of extranational soldiers.

Still, policy doesn't have to make sense, I suppose.

wintermute