 All right, all persons having business before the honorable Chief Judge Berrilee Howell of the United States District Court in and for the District of Columbia now holding this naturalization ceremony will draw nigh and give their attention. God saved the United States of America and its honorable court. Please remain standing for the presentations of the colors, the national anthem, and the retiring of the colors. So honorable court is now in session. Please be seated and come to order. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Museum of the National Archives. Good morning. Thank you. Okay, we're all awake on this beautiful day. Today is a memorable and important milestone for all of you who are about to come become new citizens of this country. As the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, it is both my privilege and my pleasure to preside over this naturalization ceremony this morning. The ceremony began this morning with the joint armed forces Color Guard presenting our nation's flag and the flags of the different branches of the U.S. military so that we can show our pride in our country and the military service men and women who helped defend its security. The flag is an important symbol and we are fortunate to stand in this rotunda of the National Archives next to the foundational documents that give meaning to the flag and our country. You're going to hear later from very special speakers, the acting archivist of the United States, Deborah Wall, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, Marcia Espinoza, and Roger Bennett, who's a writer and a filmmaker. Before we turn to our speakers, the court recognizes Aunt Lee McClure, a Deputy Clerk for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, who will introduce those persons seeking to become new citizens. May it please the court. When your name is called, please stand and answer here or present and remain standing. France, Paris, Cameroon, Imran Majawar, India, Jessica O'dangwa Chu, Mongolia, Carmen J. Walter, Germany, Jurgen Netka Nazir, Albania, Natalka Nia, Ukraine, Krishnan Jaganathan Karakudi, India, Natalia Victor Kittelsen Moldova, Reza Mamoudi, Iran, Anna Julie Kintania-Balanko, El Salvador, Nils Petter Albin Sinström, Sweden, Sofia Ludna Sheik, Pakistan, Sophie Lagrace Asunga Akua, Cameroon, Pala Berenstein, Mexico, Andrew Ayumidi Aywiyemi Sasanya, UK, Jia Jillian Montgomery, China, Ronaldo Weaver, Brazil, Yiamin Ngachalo, Cameroon, Ismelda Marisela Diaz-Delcid, El Salvador, Alexandra Zarina Maneze Rutledge, Canada, Cindy Shinyan Lin, Taiwan, Sujin Cho-Koo, Republic of Korea, Olatunde Aragon Iherima, Nigeria, Nadia Leslie Bremmer Peru, Dudane Magill Kazembe Congo. Your Honor, there are 25 applicants for naturalization. Each of the applicants has been examined by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, and the government has completed its investigation in each case. It's been determined that each applicant is eligible for naturalization at this time. I move that upon taking the oath of allegiance to the United States of America, each applicant present, having answered to his or her name, including those prayers for name change, be granted naturalization as citizens of the United States of America. So please remain standing. Each of you please raise your right hand as I administer the oath of allegiance. Please repeat after me. I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate state or sovereignty. All allegiance and fidelity to any state or sovereignty of whom or which I have here to forbid a subject or citizen that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by law, that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God. Congratulations to each of you. One nation under God and visible liberty and justice for all. Please welcome six grade students from Alice Deal Middle School who will recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The people of the United States in order to form a corporate union establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, to ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Please welcome to the stage the acting archivist of the United States, Deborah Steidle Wall. Good morning. Welcome to the Rotunda of the National Archives and congratulations to America's 25 newest citizens. I'm so happy for you. Thank you to the students from Alice Deal Middle School for the preamble. You did a great job and you'll probably remember every one of those words for the rest of your life, or at least when you're my age. And thank you as always to Chief Judge Beryl Howell for presiding over today's ceremony. The National Archives is so proud to host this naturalization ceremony with the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service and the United States District Courts for the District of Columbia. This is the first ceremony we've had since 2019 and we're very glad that they're back. This week we celebrate the 235th anniversary of the ratification of the United States Constitution. There is no better place in the world to become an American citizen than here in this room. Behind me is the original Constitution, the basis on which our government is structured, and in your oath of allegiance today, you pledge to uphold this Constitution. My papers have stuck together. Okay, here we go. And to my right is the Declaration of Independence, the parchment that our founding fathers signed in 1776 in Philadelphia, setting in motion the path to our nationhood. And to my left is the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. They spell out the basic personal rights and freedoms that are guaranteed to every American. They include freedom of speech, religion and the press, the right to petition the government, and the right to due process of the law and a speedy and fair trial. These are your rights now. Naturalization ceremony days are always my favorite day here at the archives, and I never fail to get emotional. There's my sheer joy for you all and the promise that your journey represents, and I also think about my own ancestors, my distant paternal ancestors who fled failed revolutions in Germany and a potato famine in Ireland in the mid-1800s, and much more immediately, my beloved paternal grandparents, Maria Abad Martinez, and Francisco Rodriguez-Hila, who came to America in the 1930s for economic opportunities unavailable in their native Spain. Their immigration story heavily shaped my own identity and worldview, and I wish they could see their granddaughter today standing in front of America's founding documents and welcoming new citizens and know how grateful she is for their courage and sacrifices. So many Americans have stories like mine, and now you, our newly naturalized citizens, will have your own American story. We have billions of pages of records here at the National Archives. Becoming an American citizens means that you will now be part of the National Archives because your naturalization documents will eventually be a part of our holding, so maybe someday your descendants will look at those documents to learn more about your story. So again, my deepest congratulations to you all. Now, I would like to introduce the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Marcia Espinosa, who oversees the Department of Homeland Security's public outreach, media, strategic, and incident communications, and serves as the principal advisor to Secretary Alejandro Mayorcas on all internal and external communications. Please welcome Marcia Espinosa. Thank you, Deborah, for the kind introduction and for hosting us here today at the Archives. It's pretty incredible to be here. I've only been here once, and I had to wait in a really long line to get in, so you all are very, very lucky to be here where history is housed and where today history is made. Just being in this room is a tremendous honor as a public servant and as a U.S. citizen, and being with you all is truly a privilege of a lifetime. Thank you to Chief Judge Howell, Roger James Bennett, and the students of Alice Diel Middle School, and everyone who made this beautiful ceremony possible today. Most of all, thank you all for the opportunity to be part of your special day. I'm now so proud to call you my fellow Americans. All of us have a story to tell. A story of how we got to this remarkable moment, a story of what compelled many of us, our families, our ancestors, not only to make the long journey to this country, but to raise our hands and swear this oath to citizenship. It's a story that's unique and different than the person sitting next to you all today yet somehow brings us all together as Americans because our diversity is really our strength and somehow our stories bound us together with the tales of our nation's founders told in the pages here, living history in the National Archives. We're surrounded by that story here today of the men and women who put the names and lives on the line for an idea inked into the parchment of the Declaration of the Independence and the Constitution. The opening words of the Declaration are easily the most remembered part which we heard today. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Words, these words are often celebrated as signifying the beginning of an exceptional American history, one characterized despite setbacks by a progressive expansion of rights, but the closing words of the Declaration are far less known and those words call to attention some of the hard truths that our country was founded on as well. This was a different time and the United States was a different place but it's a story that we can study, we can learn from and it's a story that we can all help grow. My own story draws on its own thread in our country's tapestry. I was born and raised in New Mexico, Nueva Mexico and it's a place where parents and grandparents still pass down seemingly ancient traditions, language, religions and memories of border crossings over our heads rather than under our feet, things they heard from their predecessors too. Our state takes inspiration from the history of Spanish influence over Mexican and Native American ways of living that found a home in the American Southwest and carries on centuries later. That's where my story began and now in my professional life at the Department of Homeland Security I have the honor of sharing other stories believe it or not I get paid to talk about all of the great work that our department, our USCIS and all of you are are doing every day as naturalized citizens, the public servants I work with, the law enforcement and military officers we saw, my husband who is also a Marine who helped to keep us safe and I truly believe that bringing all these threads together is only possible here in this nation in a democracy where at its best everybody belongs and everybody's story is valued where out of many we can become one and it may not seem obvious to you at first but as immigrants we are a part of the same story and you too may have sacrificed for the dream of a better life, a free society, of a brighter future for yourselves or for your families or for just the next generation to come and you too bring dynamic traditions and faiths and ideals to the table and you too have a place in the United States because if we believe in these documents behind us in this room then democracy means there's a role for all of us a voice for all of us a responsibility for all of us and that responsibility isn't to be taken for granted you earned your citizenship through time dedication, determination these questions are hard your work was hard we acknowledge that today but it doesn't end there, we know that and I've spent most of my life in public service and I know firsthand what it'll take to write the next chapter in America's story you your participation your votes your willingness to get involved in kids schools neighborhoods your decisions to knock on doors show up on election day and maybe even run for office I'm looking at you kids back there so you've already done the hardest part by getting to this nation and reaching for this day of naturalization so next I hope you'll take the pen and the next step I hope you'll see the declaration the constitution the rights and everything here as living documents that would truly begin to give meaning to your oath and that would truly be an incredible story to tell I thank you all so much for the chance to join you today congratulations thank you now I would like to welcome Roger Bennett founder of the Men in Blazers Media Network one of the most listened to football as we insist on saying in the United States soccer platforms in the world Mr. Bennett or Raj as he keeps telling us to call him hosts a slew of podcasts covering multiple leagues in the men's and women's game his television show Men in Blazers appears on NBC's Peacock he's also the author of Reborn in the USA an Englishman's love letter to his chosen home it debuted at number one in the New York Times bestseller list Roger Bennett once described himself as an American trapped in an Englishman's body so luckily he solved that problem by becoming a US citizen in 2018 we're thrilled he's joining us today which also happens to be his birthday please welcome Roger Bennett I think every American should come to one of these at least once a year really hits the best of our nation Chief Judge Beryl Howell Acting Archivist Deborah Stidlewall Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Marsha Espinosa my fellow new Americans I am Roger Bennett and it's an honor to stand amongst you and congratulate you on this life-changing occasion your naturalization ceremony with a week of Constitution Day no less the day we honor the framing of the Constitution itself on its 235th anniversary there it is right behind us the foundational document that charts the course for the American ideal I became an American on June the first 2018 I've stood where you've stood I've been surrounded by a delirious group of recently minted new Americans incredible souls of every race ethnicity, background and human form and that act of becoming an American citizen remains one of my most profound, beautiful and deeply meaningful to this day I was sworn in at the Pearl Street Courthouse Lower Manhattan as one of 163 individuals raising our right hands hailing from 47 different countries around the world and perhaps the most powerful moment came for me immediately after we'd been sworn in and a room was still thick with a sense of the awe meaning and a heavy dose of relief a combination of the feelings you're no doubt experiencing right in this very moment and once the formalities had been completed we all began to chat as you will and we shared stories of our journeys and I learned that some of my fellow citizens had experienced long, painful odysseys to be in that room they trekked huge distances across deserts or frigid mountain ranges as others survived wars, famine, refugee struggle and the one thing that we all shared that bound us and propelled us as new Americans was a profound sense of what the United States has meant to us in our lifetimes particularly in our moments of challenge the idea of America had acted as a beacon of hope an optimism, it's given us courage tenacity, the belief our lives could be different better and also gives us the strength to pursue that belief and change our future and that's what makes this room so special and that truth is also what makes this nation so singular I grew up in Liverpool, England the city which in the 1980s was overrun with mass unemployment there was a heroin epidemic besides the football and the music there was just an all-pervasive hopelessness and my great-grandfather had actually fled Ukraine by boat at the turn of the 20th century he was headed in his mind to Chicago, Illinois the meat capital of the world but then the boat docked to refuel in Liverpool and he saw the one tall building on the Liverpool skyline thought he was in New York and got off a stop early and thus my family were marooned for four generations in Liverpool rather than the American promised land of our dreams and as a kid when I was in Liverpool I told myself I was merely an American trapped in an English boys body and I'd never been to the United States but I had the American flag and the Statue of Liberty painted on my bedroom wall badly but they were the last thing that I saw every night before I went to sleep they were my light in the darkness and only by inhaling everything American the movies, the books the clothes, the television shows the knock off pairs of ray bands that I could get my hands on could I understand that life could be lived out in glorious technicolor unlike the north west of England where it was grimly ground out in black and white it was really the American idea that helped me survive gave me the belief my life could be experienced with a sense of joy and hope and laughter notions that I made real by moving here like you did at the earliest opportunity becoming not only a citizen but a gent who in my own imagination loves America almost as much as Bruce Springsteen loves America because that American idea has been the central one around which I've organized my life now being here for 29 years I met my wife who's a New Yorker I've had four kids each of them have American accents and I'm elated to say the love I feel for the United States which has forged naively as a kid still burns so brightly yet as an adult that love has matured it now exists as a kind of love where you know that the object of your affection like everything in life has strengths and weaknesses and that being in love means that you commit to working harder that relationship and never never taking it for granted and that document behind me the Constitution our Constitution it begins with the iconic phrase we the people you are now part of that we and I can tell you from experience this moment of becoming a citizen is a profound personal transformation one that turns your American dreams formally into an American reality to become a citizen means to assume rights and responsibilities the right to vote is amongst the thrilling the right to vote is amongst the most thrilling and the most crucial and despite that change I ask you this never forget the core dream that brought you here it's part of a shared dream that's rightly within the heart of every American citizen a commitment to love this nation and to better it by being perpetually aware of the difference between the American dream and American realities and to dedicate yourself to closing the gap between the two because this Constitution God sorry what a mess I'm such a hot mess excuse me one moment because this Constitution that we revere and celebrate this week is itself proof of the possibility to thrive through change indeed the genius of America is that we can change Martin Luther King Susan B. Anthony Ida B. Wells Harvey Milk Cesar Chavez Grace Lee Boggs and more and more are all proof of that American lives live with courage optimism and hope daring this country to live up to its potential and this is what makes America extraordinary and now all of you are part of this work let us lift that mantle up together understanding our capacity our responsibility as citizens is to dedicate ourselves to change for the betterment of all as a great poet Langston Hughes wrote let America be America again the land that never has been yet and yet must be and our task now is to dream together and ground those dreams in our realities I've got to say that again our task is now to dream together and ground those dreams in our realities I wish you all enormous congratulations and most of all courage. Thank you very much you might have been a hot mess but you made all of us be a little bit of a hot mess as well Mr. Bennett thank you for those remarks I do join the archivist Deborah Wall Assistant Secretary Espinosa and Raj Mr. Bennett in welcoming all of you as our newest citizens I hope that you've been inspired by the messages you've heard today and the service to our country of Ms. Wall Ms. Espinosa and to the contributions to our culture and the inspiring remarks that Mr. Bennett gave to us today I'd also like to thank the students from Alice Middle School for participating in our proceedings by highlighting orally the preamble to our constitution I'm going to give you a little history lesson the first three words of the preamble we the people were actually written by an immigrant James Wilson who arrived in this country from Scotland at the age of 23 he went on to become one of the founding fathers at the constitutional convention and then close to my heart he became one of the first six supreme court justices appointed by our first president George Washington so while our declaration of independence our constitution and our bill of rights rest under glass all around us in the rotunda the goals the ideas the framework of these aspirational documents live on vigorously to guide this country when the framers signed our constitution on September 17th 1787 hence why this is constitution week 235 years ago they recognized that this country would grow and flourish with new immigrants becoming new citizens they reserved and finally created federal government the power to establish all uniform rule of naturalization that's in article 1 section 8 of our constitution the importance of naturalized citizens was again recognized after the civil war in our 14th amendment to the US constitution this constitutional amendment states expressly that persons naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States to commemorate the day that the constitution was signed every September 17th has been named constitution day and this week surrounding that date that we're in is named constitution week so by your action today of becoming naturalized citizens you are fulfilling a vision of America laid out 235 years ago and reaffirmed in the 14th amendment over 150 years ago in fact most Americans in this country as you've heard from our speakers already are in this country because they themselves chose to come here or their parents or grandparents in my case grandparents made the courageous choice that each of you has made to leave the countries where you grew up where you knew the language where you had family and friends to follow your dreams to this new country this is not easy and I know that you have waited you've studied you've worked hard to arrive at this day and you've come to America for many different reasons some leave the countries of their birth with sadness in order to escape difficult situations or even wars but all who come here aspire to build better lives for themselves and for their children it is just thrilling to see the number of countries from which you all have come from included, we will have new citizens from over 21 countries in case you weren't keeping count as Mrs. McClure was listing your countries of origin America truly is a great melting pot and we're all enriched and better for it no matter where you came from today each of you will be able to say you are an American citizen as citizens you have rights that are protected under our constitution and enforced if necessary in courts around this country presided over by federal judges like me you have the right to practice your faith or not to follow any religion at all if you don't want to you have the right to speak freely about matters you care about and the right to privacy in your home as citizens you are each equal in fundamental rights equal before the law with an equal share in the freedom to pursue your own version of happiness of course our constitution does not guarantee that you will find happiness but the founders of the nation intended in the declaration of independence to design a form of government where you are free to try which is why happiness figures are the foundation as citizens we not only have rights but we also have duties and responsibilities as new citizens I hope you make three choices about your lives here first I hope you choose to be involved we are a self governing people and self government works best when citizens are involved and informed you should seek to inform yourselves read and listen and understand the choices we face as a nation and educated citizenry is essential to the continuation of a self governing government your children and grandchildren will learn the duties of citizenship by watching you when you go to vote take your children with you we have elections every two years at the federal level and a presidential election that happens every four years pay attention to the news and to what our elected officials say talk to your children about that and about what you hear teach your children through your actions that not only are we free to complain about our political leaders we can vote to change them or to keep them this decision can be important for you and the direction you want for our country the United States may not be perfect but we have a very powerful tool in the voting booth to make changes and improvements I also hope you make a second choice choose to make a positive contribution to the community in which you live we expect you to be law abiding but as citizens expect more from yourselves than that we may not all be able to contribute to our cultural entertainment like Mr. Bennett or to perform public service at the level of our archivist Ms. Wall or Assistant Secretary Marcia Espinosa but we can all do our part whether it is picking up litter or being a neighbor volunteering at a children's school finally I hope you also choose to share your stories many Americans take their citizenship for granted by telling your story about why you chose to come here and what you went through to get here helps your fellow Americans appreciate what we have in our country we encourage your place because of your stories and the cultural experiences that you bring here with you because America's strength is in the diversity of our people so choose to be involved choose to make a positive contribution to your community and choose to tell your stories by your conduct and qualifications and actions here this morning you have each earned your rightful place to be called an American citizen and to share your contributions to you all the court now recognizes Mr. King to close today's proceedings alright this ceremony is now concluded and this honorable court is now adjourned baby seated we ask that guests please remain seated as the certificates are given out what was the first room so the way we're going to do this is we're not going to shake hands to avoid any transmission of anything just come up the first row can stand up and come stand in front and then collect your unless you've already done that collect your certificate from Ms. Bacour walk around and then come back to your seat after the first row is done we'll move to the second row