 I'll personally have anything to do before the honorable Catherine A. Robertson, the magistrate's judge for the United States District Court for District of Massachusetts, not holding any cameras. In and for the District of Massachusetts, may you draw near, give their attendance, and they shall be heard, I'd say, of the United States of America, and this honorable court is now open. At this time, what a room for the beautiful people. Hi, my name is Chanel Grudeau, I'm an immigration services assistant of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Congratulations on your journey to becoming a United States citizen. My pleasure. Today, oh, is it Mike? Oh, I thought I was doing well projecting my voice. Thank you. Today's the day to celebrate this amazing journey that have brought us all together. Therefore, we want to ensure that this occasion is memorable and also a safe event. Please follow the exit signs and take a look at this moment to the ones around you. Emergency exits are found throughout the facility. Please take a moment to look around for your nearest emergency exit. Again, congratulations on reaching, it is an important day, it is in your journey to become an American citizen. And at this moment, your honor, there is one applicant of naturalization present today who is to change, who with us that would like to change your name as part of the naturalization process. The government has investigated the reason for these changes, it has no objections. I respectfully move that the name change be allowed. And that motion will be allowed. Thank you, your honor. Your honor, there are 21 applicants of naturalization present today. Each applicant has been duly examined under the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. As amended, each has been found well qualified for the United States citizenship. At this time, your honor, I respectfully move that the oath of allegiance be administered to all 21 applicants, thus bestowing on them one of our, I'm sorry, one of our nation's highest honors citizenship. And that's the important motion and it gives me great pleasure to grant it. And now I'm going to ask Maurice Lee of our district court to administer the oath to all of you. Applicants for citizenship, please stand. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. Be sure to say your names after the word, I. I, hereby declare on oath, absolutely and entirely, renouncing of juror, all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, but to take state or sovereignty of whom or which I have here to for in a subject or citizen that I will support and defend the constitution and 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 law that I will perform non-combatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law that I will perform work of national importance on the civilian direction when required by law and that I will take this obligation freely and that I will take this obligation freely without mental reservation without mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion So be God So be God Congratulations to all of you. I'm thrilled to be the first person to congratulate you on your citizenship. I'm Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson. I'm honored to be the judge presiding in this ceremony where you've just been sworn in as citizens of the United States of America. I want to welcome you and your family and your friends and members of the community who've joined us here. I want to thank the people who made the ceremony here at the Jones Library possible this afternoon. I want to thank the people from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services. They come from Lawrence, way up in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. They make a long trip so that we can actually have people sworn in out here in Western Massachusetts with your families, with your friends and as members of the community. I want to thank Maurice Lindsay, who just administered the oath. He's a naturalized citizen himself and so it gives him, I think, a real special pleasure to be part of these ceremonies and I want to welcome Congressman McGovern who I think was probably the leading force to have this ceremony here today. I've been a Magistrate Judge for about four and a half years now and presiding over naturalization ceremonies is the most meaningful and joyful part of this job and I think it's very important to say at this point when there's so much divisive discussion about immigration in this country and in other countries, that we here today truly welcome you. We want you here. We need you here. You belong here. This country, it would not be what it is without people like you who have chosen to live here, who have chosen to raise your families here and who have chosen to work here. We value the contributions you've made as residents. We value the contributions we know you're going to make as American citizens. The diversity of this group represents the strength of America and you just have to look around you to see the diversity of the group that we're swearing in today. We're swearing in, I think 21, is it 21 people? From 16 different countries and I just want to read those countries and I want to know who comes from which country. So whose country of origin is Bhutan? Bhutan, there's somebody whose country of origin is Columbia. Somebody who is originally from Cyprus. Somebody originally from France. It was originally from Guatemala. Somebody originally from India, Iraq. These are different countries with varied and rich cultures and you've taken very, very different roads to get to this point of taking the oath as American citizens. Some of those roads have been long. I suspect that some of those roads have been really difficult. When I preside at an actualization ceremony I always wish that we could bring people up here to tell their stories because I think the stories would be so rich and it would be so interesting to hear them. You don't have time to do that but I always wish we could collect these stories. Whatever has led you to this moment, your memories of your country of origin, its language, its culture, its traditions, those things remain with you. Those memories are important to who you are as individuals and who you are as families but now you're American citizens. You have the chance, you have the right to participate fully in our civic and cultural life of America and I think we all hope you'll do that. We need you to do that. We want you, we need you to use the rights and take on those responsibilities, keeping in mind qualities like fairness, tolerance, compassion, equality and freedom. Those are principles that should guide us as citizens. I believe the most important new right that you've gained today and you have it now is the right to vote. We elect the president of this country, our senators, our representatives, our local officials that we have this right to vote and that our elected representatives succeed one another in an orderly manner is a foundation of our democracy. Here in Massachusetts we also vote on ballot measures that make huge changes in the law. When you vote you're expressing your views of how this state and how this country should be run, what our laws should be and how our public money should be spent. Your vote directly affects important questions. You can be as involved in elections as you want to be. You can campaign for the candidate of your choice. You can campaign the additional about, you can campaign about issues, about which you feel strongly. You can be a candidate for elective office. I urge you to make these kinds of contributions to how this amazing country is governed. I hope there are many more proud moments for you and your families and your loved ones as you participate in a new life, as you exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship that you've earned and that you've gained today. We congratulate you, we welcome you and we really, we wish you the very best the United States has to offer. Again, my warmest congratulations. All citizens will be welcoming. I know citizens, you may have a seat. I would say welcome home. Well, America's been your home for a while. Citizenship enriches what it needs to be your home. So this is your home now in a deeper and a richer sense. Citizenship is all about rights and responsibilities you will hear. But citizenship is also, I think, by affection and allegiance and a very deep thought. In the oath that you took, you heard a word that was not, I guess not often used. Indeed, I dare say that probably no one in the room has heard this word in a very long time and that's the word potentate. I guess you didn't think that was a 20-year-old idea. So a reference to a potentate is a reference to a form of government or at least a set of political relationships which is very foreign to the United States. It was another word that was used in your oath which is more familiar to us and to which I think we need to pay great attention. And that is, you pledged to do things as, quote, required by the law. So the juxtaposition of renouncing loyalty to potentates and being obligated only by the law, I think it says a lot about the ideals of American citizenship. I have the pleasure of serving as the president of the Jones Library Board of Trustees and I wanna welcome you on behalf of the Jones Library in this our 100th anniversary year. You really honor us here by your presence and I think I can say on behalf of all of us that you are a gift to the United States. You are a gift. I'd like to extend a special welcome to the Judge Magistrate who's presided, Judge Robertson. To Congressman and to the Governor, thanks for coming, it's nice to see you. Please come again. Bearing gifts. I wanna also welcome the president of our town council, Lynn Prismar. Our town manager's at the back of Paul Backelman. It's nice to see you, Paul. Paul, you can speak. Thank you. Welcome to the Court Clerk, it's Lindsay. Welcome to the Janelle of Brayu and welcome to Richmond for that wonderful rendering of the Stores-Pinkel Painter. This library has a long standing commitment to serving all of the citizens and all of the residents of Amherst, Massachusetts and surrounding areas. For a very long time, our collection has been rich in multilingual materials, recognizing that people who use this library come from different languages and different cultural traditions. Today, our award-winning English as a second language program is, I would say, of the jewel in the crown of the Jones Library. The Jones Library, like all public libraries, as one of my colleagues recently said, is a critical element of the civic architecture of this community. It's more important than roads and more important than lights and more important than playing fields. I'm loving the town council. And along with public schools, it is the most democratic of all institutions in this town. It is a place where the old and the young, the rich and the poor, people who speak English as their native tongue and people who teach, that speak English as an acquired language come together as equals. The library is a place of hope which points all of us to a future that we imagine. And it's a place which preserves and honors the past on which all futures are built. And most importantly, the library is a place which binds the community together. Massachusetts has a long and rich but very complicated history of welcoming new citizens. Indeed, prior to the ratification of the Constitution in that period of time between the Declaration of Independence and the ratification, the question of citizenship was a question that was decided at the state level. Each state got to set the terms and conditions for people who wanted to come as citizens. Massachusetts, I'm sorry to say, originally prohibited the poor and the sick from coming here. That tradition is long in our past but it needs to be remembered because it is out of the imperfections of our past that aspirations for change and improvement come. Naturalization is an important part of my family's story. My grandfather came from Lithuania in the early part of the 20th century and was naturalized some time later. Now I say some time later because he never told his naturalization story. It's not part of our family lore. So I don't know where he was naturalized. I don't know when he was naturalized. I don't know what judge presided. I don't know what sense he made of the word potentate. He made a mistake. He didn't tell his naturalization story. I hope you won't make that same mistake. I hope you'll tell and retell and celebrate your naturalization story. And I hope in that story you'll remember to tell your children and your grandchildren and your grandchildren's children that had happened to you in the Jones Library. Writing about what it means to be a citizen, the author Peter Block observes the following. A citizen is one who is willing to be accountable for and is committed to the well-being of the whole. Block says that whole can be a city, a block, a community, a state, a nation, or the earth. A citizen is one block says, who produces the future? Let me extend you my congratulations on this very momentous occasion and say how much I look forward to the future that you will help produce for our town, our community, our state, and our nation. Congratulations, no more potentates. I'm Liv Weintraub. I am the ESL coordinator here at the Jones Library. So I'm the person that did, Robinson was talking about, who gets to hear all the stories. One of the great things about my job and I never get bored. I'm gonna thank everybody for coming out and I'm gonna give a special shout out to our congressman, Jim McGovern. His office is who I call and we have students who have been troubled with the citizenship process that needs some help. And he has done more than probably any other representative in any state to help immigrants. So I'm gonna thank the Jones Library has been helping immigrants to become part of our community by teaching them English and teaching them how things work in this country. We offer one-to-one tutoring. We offer conversation partners, conversation groups, a literacy class for other people who wanna become citizens and help with citizenship. And we work with the people who are at the lowest proficiency levels. Some of them have testing anxiety. Some of them don't know how to read yet. No matter what the situation is, we will work with them as long as it takes so that they can become citizens. And I am proud to say over all these years, every single one of them has succeeded. We're not able to do these things because we have a team of over 150 dedicated volunteers. Some of them teach one student twice a week. Some of them have two students. I have a volunteer who has 10 students that he meets one after the other. We have specialists in beginning literacy and learning disabilities, citizenship, job search, interview preparation, getting into community college. And we even have some volunteers who meet with their students in the children's room so that a toddler can be playing nearby. I know for a fact that our volunteers make a big difference in the lives of newcomers and there's a few of them out here and I'm gonna ask you to stand up and be recognized. If you're a current or former volunteer at the Jones-Larker, maybe they're already standing. We do hear as opening the doors for newcomers. Inviting them in, providing them with the tools they need to make their lives here successful. And there's a question that I think about a lot. What does it look like when immigrants and refugees have successfully integrated into our community? How do we know when that has happened? It might be when they can get by without a translator. It might be when they have jobs that pay the bills that allow them to buy a car or a house or send money home to people who really need help. It might be successes when they've figured out how to combine the best elements from their culture with the best elements from American culture. Or maybe it's when they themselves become the gatekeepers for newly arrived immigrants and they're the ones who are opening up the doors and showing people how things work. But I think one of the best indicators of success is when those immigrants decide that yes, I want to call myself an American. I want to stay here and I want to join this country as an American citizen. These 21 people here have been successful because they did a lot of things right. They obeyed our laws. They learned English. They learned civics. They saved up a lot of money for the application fee. They filled out their forms. They showed up for their appointments and we celebrate their success today. And we also celebrate our success as a community because somehow we managed to open up those doors wide enough that these 21 people decided that they wanted to make the choice to walk through. So I'm here to congratulate all of us. Lynn Perl. We're leading an excellent program here with such great results. I'm Lynn Grease-Firm, I'm president of the Amherst Town Council. One of those elected officials. You don't know what they used for the politician. And I'd like to start by first of all bringing greetings also from Joe Comfort, our senator, our state senator and also from Mindy Dom, our state representative, both representing Amherst and Mindy there. They're sorry they could not be here today. We often get to share a platform together and I can just tell you how much they regret not being here for this wonderful celebration. So I'm gonna start by asking, in addition to the 21 people up here, how many others in this room are naturalized citizens? Raise your hand. In this room, know their family's history and their arrival in this country. Some, a little bit. The point is, we are a land of immigrants. And when our president started making his attack on immigrants, I wanted to make up a sweatshirt that said, I'm an eighth generation immigrant because I'm proud of that and we're proud of you. We're proud that you've come to this country, you've decided to call it your own and you absolutely go through hopes to become citizens. But unfortunately, many of our own high school graduating seniors could not pass because of the tests you had to take, the languages you had, the language you had to learn, and the way that you had to look upon this very valuable asset. So I just want to congratulate you today. I have one other personal story to share and that was on the day I was president when our son became an American citizen. He is born in Russia and there was a law passed nationally that in addition to military children, all adoptees of people who were American citizens under the age of 18 automatically become citizens. And so in Fenial Hall, one of our foundations of our nation, we were greeted by a ceremony of flags and people just welcoming him. He was at that point about six years old and his grandparents were present, as well as our family and my husband. So these are wonderful ceremonies. There's statements that you have made about our country, about your country, and about the country for the last time, if you have a question. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Congressman Jim McGovern, and I'm so delighted to be here. I want to apologize that I planned to have a nice suit on today for the occasion, but I was just hiking the New England scene at Trigel in Northfield, and I just miscalculated the time and I thought changing in the car on the way here was probably not a good idea. So, but it is truly an honor to be with all of you to witness an exciting and uplifting ceremony. And I want to thank Judge Robertson for presiding over this special day. I want to associate myself with the remarks of everybody who has already spoken. You're in an incredible community. Amherst is a wonderful place. You met the town manager and members of the town council, but this library is an important treasure as well. And I've not only come here to learn from the books that are here, but with that many community meetings in this very, very room on subjects that, you know, far and wide. So this is a gathering place and an important place to learn. Let me first of all say congratulations to each and every one of you. I know that this is a moment that many of you have only dreamed of until now and it's one that you have worked so long and hard for. You are an inspiration to us all. I know each of you was filled with gratitude and pride, but let me also say that we are proud of and grateful for you. We're proud that you have chosen to join us as citizens and we're grateful for all the wonderful ways in which you enrich our country and make it a better place. Today, in the presence of your family and your friends and your community, each of you has raised your right hand and taken the solemn oath that generations of new Americans have taken to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. And today's ceremony reminds us that as citizens, we are not bound together by how we look or speak or dress or worship, but by shared loyalty to our founding principles of liberty, justice and equality. As your member of Congress, it brings me great joy to be one of the first people to greet you as my fellow Americans. And to be honest with you, it is one of my favorite things to do. That's because I believe that immigrants would make America great. America doesn't simply tolerate immigrants. We welcome them with stretched arms. You are the strength and the spirit of our nation. From the first pilgrims who found freedom on the shores of Plymouth Bay here in Massachusetts to the waves of immigrants from Ireland and Italy and China that built our cities, laid our railroads and plowed our fields, immigrants made America what it is today. And just as important, our culture has been enriched by the ideas, the traditions and the customs of people from every corner of the world who brought their stories here to America. So let me remind you all what was not in your world. You were not asked to swear off the art, the music, the food or the traditions of your country of origin. Instead, we ask you to bring your heritage here to enrich our society and expand our horizons. You were not asked, in many countries, such differences cause deep divisions, sometimes even war. But here in America, we treasure those differences. They make us who we are and we believe that our diversity and your diversity is a strength. Now I know what some of you were thinking. There were some people in America today who have a different view of immigrants. They believe immigration is a weakness. It's perhaps the greatest irony of our history that many of those who demonize immigrants today are the sons and daughters of immigrants themselves. How quickly they forget. Yet as citizens, it is now your duty to assure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. We are all Americans. No citizen is any more or any less than anyone else. Each of us is called to stand up for our fellow citizens and speak out against hatred and bigotry. I ask that you not only exercise the rights that are yours, but also to stand up for the rights of others. Whether it's a ton against somebody who looks different on a bus or a comment at work about somebody's ethnicity, I'm counting on you to speak up, even when it's not easy, especially when it's not easy. That brings me to my final point. Being a citizen is hard work. That's because citizenship isn't just a status. It is a state of being. America is a great and unfinished experiment in self-government founded on the idea that we the people can govern and make decisions for ourselves. That through our own hard work and willpower, we can create a better world for our children and their children. That work doesn't just belong to me or the elected officials that are here today. It doesn't just belong to the judge. It doesn't just belong to the president. It belongs to each of us as citizens. And so we need you to participate, to get involved, not just on election day by voting, but every day. I mean it when I say that the success or failure or our experiment in democracy is in your hands. We need you at town halls and at town meetings and city council meetings. We need you to protest and organize and call your elected officials and even run for office. Although I hope none of you want to run for Congress. We need you to stay informed and we need you to inform others. And when our country doesn't live up to its ideals, we need you to speak out and call us to a higher standard. You know, I think being a citizen is not just cheering on our country when things are going well. Being a citizen also requires us to dissent and to raise our voices in the face of policies that we disagree with or deplore. To be silent when you think our country is going in the wrong direction, that's not patriotism, that's not being a good citizenship. I personally believe that's moral cowardice. So we need you to be involved in every sense of that word. You know, the words of our founding documents as as fine as they may be, need nothing. Ordinary citizens don't fight to make them real for all Americans. So I'm confident that each of you will meet these obligations and I hope that you know that I am proud to be your partner in that work. So today, the paperwork is official, but you already know the truth. Being an American isn't about what's on the paperwork. It's about what's in your heart. America is an idea that lives wherever there are people striving to help their neighbors, better their communities, struggle for justice and work toward peace. And so today, that idea finally becomes a reality for each of you and I can't tell you what an honor it is to welcome all of you home. So thank you very much. All right. All rise please. United States District Court of Distant Massachusetts is now closed. We will now move to the next phase where we'll call your names and give you your certificates. Thank you and congratulations. I will do my best pronunciation of these names, but please I apologize in advance. Okay, beautiful names. Olga Fabinova, Andrew Francis Ruffin-Williams. USCIS, again, we're just so thrilled to have been able to be here today with all of you and all of your family and friends. And once you're done with your photos, you are welcome to enjoy some foods and refreshments. Thank you so much.