The United States now has nearly 80 new citizens after naturalization ceremonies held Thursday inside the Federal Courthouse on Depot Street. Federal Judge Rachel Ralston Mancl administered the oath of allegiance to people from all across the world that have decided to make their home in east Tennessee.
Immigrants from Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Costa Rica, Guatemala, India, Egypt, The Philippines, Argentina, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, Albania, Jamaica, Peru and The Netherlands officially became new citizens of the United States during the morning ceremony. A second ceremony with another 40 immigrants was held later in the afternoon at the courthouse.
The courtroom was filled Thursday morning with the friends and family members of those becoming citizens, with many becoming emotional at times during the ceremony.
Judge Mancl said the ceremony marked an important milestone for those becoming citizens, and for the nation of which they were becoming citizens.
Jamaican immigrant Dehavalon Morris said that he had come to America in 2022 with nothing and joined the military, and that he was grateful for the opportunities provided to him in the United States.
Another immigrant, Katie Valdez from Peru, said that she was thankful for her mother who gave up her career in Peru and moved to the U.S. years ago and became a housekeeper so she and her siblings could get a good education. Valdez is a nurse, and will soon be a nurse practitioner.
Each new citizen took an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, which Mancl said guaranteed those in the United States freedoms, rights and privileges. Mancl said that those freedoms come with certain obligations, such as treating all people with dignity and respect regardless of their national origin, gender, race, religion, beliefs, sexual preferences, or physical conditions.
“The idea that all people are created equal is not just a legal principle expressed in an ancient document, but a guiding moral imperative,” Mancl said. “The past and future success of our nation depends on our ability to fulfill this principle on a daily basis.
Mancl also told the gathered crowd that America “has always been strengthened by those who choose it, deliberately and thoughtfully” as those becoming new citizens had done.
Mancl noted that millions of Americans had fought and died for those rights over the past 250 years, and she asked the new group of citizens to honor those Americans by exercising their newly obtained right to vote. Employees of the Greene County Election Commission Office were on hand after the ceremony to help register the new citizens to vote, and the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution provided the new citizens with flags and refreshments. Three students from Hal Henard Elementary School led those at the ceremony in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mancl told the immigrants that they had completed a long and hard journey to become citizens, and that their new journey as Americans was just beginning.
“It will be an exciting journey because it will be a journey of opportunity,” Mancl said.
