In naturalization ceremonies spanning a former warship in California to the majestic New York Public Library, nearly 15,000 immigrants hailing from Albania to Zimbabwe were sworn in as United States citizens over this past Fourth of July holiday.
In a ceremony at the Virginia Historical Society, the chief justice of the Richmond court that ruled against Donald Trump’s second failed Muslim ban administered the Oath of Allegiance to 89 new Americans:
“America will need your industry to fuel her engines of prosperity. America will need your intellect to seed her fields of creativity. America will need your imagination to light her path to new discovery. Yes, America will need your voice to join in its unwavering cry for justice,” [Judge Roger] Gregory said. “From this day forward, my dear fellow citizens, this is your charge.”
"You all will weave your unique threads into the tapestry that is the United States of America," Senior U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who presided over a ceremony at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential site in Indiana, told the group of 96 new Americans. "You are welcome here. I repeat, you are welcome here. Remember that."
In California, Sen. Kamala Harris delivered remarks at a ceremony for a group of children and youth who derived citizenship when their immigrant parents naturalized. During the ceremony—the first of its kind onboard the USS Iowa—Sen. Harris discussed her own family’s immigration story:
“Looking at this group, I can’t help but think of a young woman roughly the age of many of you.
She was born in Chennai, in the south of India, where she had been a talented singer and a precocious student. And this young woman dreamed of becoming a scientist.
She wanted to study at one of the top universities in the world, the University of California, Berkeley. She was only 19, but her father let her travel halfway around the world, with the agreement that when she finished school she would return home to a traditional Indian marriage.
But at Berkeley, this young woman met a young man, also an immigrant. A top economics student from Jamaica. And so instead of an arranged marriage, she went against thousands of years of tradition and chose a love marriage.
That woman was my mother, Shyamala Gopalan.”