The Military MAVNI (Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest) program allows immigrants a rare chance to skip the green card process and go straight to U.S. citizenship. Foreigners include the following visa holders: F-1, J-1, H-1B, H-4, L-2 E-2, TPS, etc., as well as DACA beneficiaries.

The Army plans to reopen the MAVNI (Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest) program soon, perhaps as early as next week or the first few weeks in January 2014. The fiscal quota for MAVNI is set at 1500, with 1300 slots allocated for the Army for now. Last year the Air Force recruited two (2) MAVNIs so they may recruit a few this year.

Within its 1300 MAVNI quota, the Army is attempting to recruit:

• 130 doctors
• 100 language speakers for the Army Reserve
• 1070 active duty enlisted soldiers who speak foreign languages in short supply (not Spanish)

DACAs (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) will be eligible for these slots. There are probably some DACAs out there who speak Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, Russian, or Portuguese, among the other MAVNI languages.

The SSBI (Single Scope Background Investigation) has disqualified many MAVNIs in the past and it will likely continue to pose a problem, particularly for DACAs. The contractors who perform the SSBIs have been failing candidates for such things as lying on the application; working unlawfully; having unauthorized relatives in the US; using someone else’s identity; having a poor credit rating; having put the wrong income down on a credit card application; or having been fired from a job.

Army Reserve slots should be particularly attractive to people who don’t want to quit their civilian jobs but who would like a chance to serve and obtain U.S. citizenship.