{"id":439047,"date":"2026-09-17T18:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T18:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/439047\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T18:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T18:06:10","slug":"houston-veterans-organization-rolls-out-voter-outreach-initiative-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/439047\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston veterans\u2019 organization rolls out voter outreach initiative \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Veterans<\/p>\n

Michael Adkison\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

City leaders held a Veterans Day parade on Nov. 11, 2025.<\/p>\n

Sept. 17 is both Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution and recognizing all those who have become U.S. citizens. Combined Arms, a Houston-based nonprofit, is using the occasion to launch a pair of initiatives aimed at increasing civic engagement by veterans. The initiatives are particularly aimed at new citizens and people preparing for their citizenship exams. <\/p>\n

The Civic After Service<\/a> initiative encourages veterans to continue their commitment to national service after they take off their uniforms. Khalil Yarzada, SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) & Allies Program Manager for Combined Arms, said that means participating in the decision-making process by registering to vote.<\/p>\n

“The privilege of being able to vote, you only will understand it when you don\u2019t have that privilege,” Yarzada said. “And I\u2019m talking about those veterans who are not citizens yet, and they\u2019re probably craving to do that.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Serving in the U.S. military has traditionally provided an expedited path to U.S. citizenship, although that process has slowed under the President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Yarzada noted that, since World War I alone, roughly 818,000 foreign nationals have naturalized through military service and become eligible to vote. He estimated that, while about 82% of foreign-born veterans have already become citizens, some 115,000 veterans still haven’t finished that path. That doesn’t include active-duty personnel.<\/p>\n

“Right now, approximately 50,000 active-duty service members are not yet citizens,” Yarzada said. “That means they defend the right to vote without being able to cast one themselves. They carry the full weight of service without the full rights of citizenship.”<\/p>\n

\"Khalil\"<\/p>\n

Andrew Schneider\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Khalil Yarzada, SIV & Allies Program Manager, Combined Arms<\/p>\n

The initiative also aims to encourage native-born U.S. veterans to register to vote as well.<\/p>\n

“They are not probably voting for whatever reason \u2014 maybe they\u2019re discouraged \u2014 and our initiative is basically trying to educate them and encourage them that not voting is not really the answer to the problem,” Yarzada said.<\/p>\n

In addition to helping veterans register to vote, Civic After Service works with veterans already registered to make sure their addresses are up to date on the voter rolls so they can cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

“We also hold workshops where we can talk to them about the importance of the ballot boxes, and how this is really a turning point, and trying to build that trust if there is a lack of it, to see them appearing and hopefully eventually being able to vote,” Yarzada said.<\/p>\n

Combined Arms is also launching another initiative \u2014 in cooperation with the nonprofit Welcome.US<\/a>, as well as other veterans’ and faith-based organizations \u2014 to pair volunteers with recent arrivals to help them prepare for their citizenship exams. Nazanin Ash, Welcome.US’ cofounder, said the organization’s Citizen Guide initiative, also launching today, is already proving a success.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve already met our goals for the year, and this is our latest volunteer initiative,” Ash said. “It comes on top of the 3 million Americans who have already joined our volunteer movement who have helped welcome over 800,000 newcomers in 26,000 zip codes across all 50 states.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Adkison\/Houston Public Media City leaders held a Veterans Day parade on Nov. 11, 2025. Sept. 17 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[136738,56,58,57,1724,19735,223,287,152067,27,104106,11482,4516,2279],"class_list":["post-439047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-combined-arms","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-immigration","tag-military-veterans","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-special-immigrant-visa","tag-texas","tag-u-s-armed-forces","tag-u-s-citizenship","tag-voter-registration","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}