There are many reasons why US citizenship for illegal aliens should not be considered. One of the most important is the fact that forgiving lawbreakers would diminish the meaning of this special privilege.

Two thousand years ago, it was considered to be a great privilege to be a Roman citizen. Such individuals traveled freely with the full protective might of the Empire behind them and enjoyed specific civil rights.

In the modern world, US citizenship is still widely considered to be such a special achievement. It is a guarantee of freedom of religion and speech and a passport to economic opportunity.

We are mindful of the patience and persistence of those who stay in line to get proper visas, work hard in our country and pay taxes while filing applications and waiting their turn, take the naturalization classes and learn what our country stands for, and then finally attend their citizenship ceremony. And we do not want to establish a parallel system of amnesty that makes their efforts meaningless.

But there is another path to citizenship that we don’t mention as often, that of service in our armed forces. Here there are candidates who lay their very lives on the line to pay for their citizenship. To dilute the meaning of their sacrifice would be especially egregious.

We are reminded of this particularly as we see images of the citizenship ceremonies that were held yesterday, on the anniversary of our nation’s birth. The picture at the top of this article shows 161 members of our armed forces taking the oath of citizenship in Iraq:

Taking U.S. citizenship oaths in Iraq
Hundreds of American immigrants serving in the military are naturalized in ceremonies around the war-torn country.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

BAGHDAD — U.S. soldiers and Marines filed into the marble hall of Saddam Hussein’s former Al Faw Palace on Independence Day as foreigners at home as well as here. But they left the room as American citizens.

Standing under a glittering chandelier, 161 service members took the oath of citizenship Wednesday, the largest group to be naturalized at once in Iraq since the conflict began in March 2003. The mostly young, mostly male troops with last names such as Toledo and Serrano stitched across the backs of their caps vowed to “support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies,” an abstract promise with a deeper daily meaning here….

May God bless these young people and may God preserve this nation that still is the beacon of freedom to a troubled world.