promise of mass deportations<\/u><\/a> of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, his suspension of refugee resettlements and his effort to end the constitutional promise of birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI\u2019m disappointed at the climate and the rhetoric right now,\u201d said Kansas state Rep. Tobias Schlingensiepen, a Topeka Democrat and United Church of Christ minister. \u201cIt promotes people with short fuses doing things they shouldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet Schlingensiepen was heartened by the ceremony and it brought back memories. This year will mark the 50th anniversary of his own naturalization as a 13-year-old immigrant from Germany. He has attended other ceremonies, and he stopped to watch Monday\u2019s after coming across it during a break in legislative meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The officials speaking at the ceremony congratulated the new citizens who had to fill out applications, undergo interviews, take a citizenship test and attest to their good character before they could be naturalized. The speakers also celebrated the diversity of the American population and described their adopted nation as a place of equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe dreams of immigrants have built in America and continue to inject new energy, new vitality and new strength into our country,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Rachel Pickering noted that her mother\u2019s parents came to the U.S. from Mexico about a century ago. She said later that they were fleeing a civil war and took a train to Chicago to find work before settling in Detroit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She told the new citizens, \u201cYou are keeping the American dream alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Jerry Ugbo took the citizenship oath, his wife, Hannah, watched with their two children, 18-month-old Gideon and 6-month-old Nora. Gideon laughed with delight as his mother waved a small American flag then handed it to him. The flag ended up attached to the side of Nora\u2019s carriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jerry Ugbo came to Idaho from Nigeria in 2015 to study human biology. He and his family now live in Manhattan, Kansas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Topeka. He is finishing up schooling to become a physician\u2019s assistant and Hannah does major event planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The couple married in 2018, and Jerry Ugbo hadn\u2019t thought much about becoming a U.S. citizen as he concentrated on his career. He described the U.S. as a place of \u201cendless opportunity\u201d after making friends and immersing himself in American culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the debate over immigration swirling, Hannah Ugbo said she thinks it\u2019s important for people to come to the U.S. legally but that the legal process has hurdles. It costs at least hundreds of dollars, and often immigrants hire lawyers to help them, especially if they struggle with English. Jerry and Hannah Ugbo, unable to afford a lawyer, had to sweat the details themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With his oath taken, Jerry Ugbo and his family planned to celebrate, though the first order of business was a meal and, Hannah Ugbo said, to \u201clet the kids play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
apnews<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) \u2014 Carlos Wriedt came to the U.S. from Mexico in his 40s with his wife to pursue their dream of starting a business and to build a better life for their daughter, then 10 months old. He and his wife became U.S. citizens Monday, taking their oaths in a ceremony at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[20954,32146,1230],"class_list":["post-37783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-american-citizenship","tag-mass-deportation-order","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37785,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37783\/revisions\/37785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}