Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Celebrates Naturalizations Of New Citizens

Forbes Breaking News

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu praised the large turnout of the city’s Citizenship Day despite ongoing tensions surrounding immigration issues.

Transcript

00:00All right, last question.

00:17So the question was, you see people all dressed up, big smiles coming out of the federal building

00:22after they have taken the oath or even just filed the paperwork to become naturalized

00:27United States citizens, why should people still do that?

00:31Why should people go through that process?

00:32Is that the right question?

00:39So the city of Boston, through our Office of Immigrant Advancement,

00:43runs a Citizenship Day in partnership with many community organizations every single year.

00:48And we were worried, we weren't sure what would happen this last year's Citizenship Day

00:52with all of the fear and all of the threats out in the community.

00:56Would community members show up?

00:58Would people still want to become U.S. citizens?

01:01Would people still show up and try to get help filling out those forms and get in that pipeline?

01:06Not only did we have a full house of community members signing up and getting in the pipeline

01:11to become citizens, for the first time we were way oversubscribed for volunteer attorneys

01:17from our community stepping up to help and make sure that everyone could have that opportunity.

01:23But there are many here who could speak.

01:25I watched my parents become naturalized citizens some 20 plus years after they had already been

01:31in this country.

01:31And the deep meaning, the love for this country that comes from that level of sacrifice,

01:39that you're willing to give up everything to come here, to start over, to learn a new language,

01:43to leave behind everything that you know, because you believe and have faith in this country

01:48so much that you want your family tree to start growing here.

01:51There is nothing greater than that.

01:54But there are many organizations here who help with the citizenship and naturalization process.

01:59Does anyone, maybe I'll take one or two community organizations.

02:02Claire, do you want to say anything?

02:03Or anyone else?

02:04Come on up.

02:04One or two people who either have become citizen, naturalized citizens,

02:08or who are working to help others do so.

02:10What would you like to say about this question of why should people still become U.S. citizens?

02:18How do you think about that problem?

02:19Tell us your name.

02:21Hi, I'm Damaris Velasquez, Director of Programs of Agencia Alpha.

02:25And we, thank you, we hope people to become citizens of the United States

02:31because we still believe in the democracy of this nation.

02:34We still believe that this is a good nation.

02:36The fact that we have an administration that is trying to destroy the democracy of this country

02:42doesn't mean that that's going to take away the dream that we come with as immigrants.

02:47I, myself, am a naturalized citizen of the United States, originally from Guatemala.

02:52And I can tell you that whoever is telling people that immigrants don't want to become citizens

02:59or immigrants don't want to be part of this nation, that is a completely lie.

03:02The reason why we come here is because we know that we bring the best of our countries

03:07and we make the best of this nation as well.

03:09So people still have the dream.

03:12People still want to become citizens of the United States

03:14because people still believe in democracy in this nation.

03:22Mayor Ballantyne just whispered to me that she became a naturalized U.S. citizen

03:25right in this very building as well.

03:27And I know so many of our elected officials are coming with that same love for this country.

03:31All right, thank you everyone for being here.

03:33We're going to keep going.

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