Staff and Wire Reports

  WASHINGTON - Never again will a soldier killed fighting for the United States be buried as a foreigner.

  Tucked inside a defense bill that won final approval in the Senate yesterday was a measure sought by Georgia Sens. Zell Miller and Saxby Chambliss granting
  posthumous citizenship for foreign-born soldiers killed in battle for the United States.

  The story of Colombia native Diego Rincon, a Conyers, Ga., soldier was the inspiration behind it.

  "This is something we were waiting for a long time," said his father Jorge Rincon in an interview with The Associated Press.

  The elder Rincon requested his son be granted citizenship after his death in Iraq. Eventually, Miller and Chambliss intervened.

  Chambliss said the measure, which President Bush is expected to sign into law, should be interpreted as nothing less than a tribute to a patriot.

  But local human rights activist Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos called the new policy "insulting."

  "There's not much a person can do with citizenship once their dead," she said. "The fact that they have signed up to join the military and are willing to die should be
  enough. That would be more acceptable than rewarding people with this tokenism after they've given their lives and their family has to mourn their death."

  Chambliss said about a dozen other soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't had their paperwork processed and are still considered foreign citizens. They
  would officially become Americans under the legislation; from here on anyone else killed in combat would become a citizen.