Naturalization ceremonies in Miami are powerful civic lessons | Opinion
Every year, we work together to hold a big naturalization ceremony in Miami, where 1,000 new citizens are sworn in by our court each year. These events are always golden moments – an occasion to touch the DNA of our American citizenship.
Watching a naturalization ceremony is a powerful act of civic education, because it is a reminder that citizenship is a choice. People from all over the world dream of coming to America for the freedoms at the heart of our society. They choose to leave their homelands and learn a new set of customs so they can pursue their dreams.
But with that freedom comes responsibility – and those of us who are natural-born citizens can learn much from the example our new countrymen set at these ceremonies.
The centerpiece of each is the naturalization oath. And at the heart of the oath is a funny word: “abjure.” It is difficult to pronounce (especially for people who speak English as a second language) and uncommonly spoken these days, but we ask new citizens to say it anyways. They always find a way to get it out, because it is a step towards becoming something they long to be.
“Abjur[ing] all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty” means that these new citizens are declaring their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. Our founding fathers said they were building a “new order for the ages,” one built not on domination or divine right but rather universal equality and the idea that all people are born free.
At the naturalization ceremony, new citizens dedicate themselves to the timeless principles that make our country different from all the others that came before.
Our political tradition of freedom is announced in the Declaration of Independence, codified in the Constitution, and given life by the everyday choices of our citizens to uphold our shared principles.
As President Abraham Lincoln once put it, the idea of freedom is “the electric cord” that “links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together.” The naturalization ceremony is a particular expression of this tradition. It is the moment when individuals born elsewhere are transformed into full-blown Americans.
At the same time, though, we must remember that citizenship is not easy. It is a high calling, and the naturalization oath binds those who take it to sacrifice greatly for this republic. Being a successful citizen is a challenge; it is not something a person can become overnight.
Some of America’s greatest citizens have been naturalized immigrants. Writers such as Elie Wiesel, inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, and entrepreneurs like Sergey Brin have improved this country by following their dreams. They leaven the nation with their creativity and hard work. Celebrating them — and all naturalized citizens — is really a chance to celebrate the glorious vision of freedom America incarnates.
For natural-born Americans, citizenship can sometimes seem perfunctory, a taken-for-granted fact of American life. For immigrants, on the other hand, attaining citizenship is a years-long process that even requires a test of civic knowledge. Those of us who did not have to choose America can learn from that process, and through its crowning ceremony, we should remember that to whom much is given, much is required.
To that end, public, private and charter school students should take field trips to naturalization ceremonies annually. Students would put aside their phones and, for a short while, see the meaning of our nation through the eyes of new Americans.
They should know that American citizenship is a privilege for which many have struggled and still struggle — and understand the magic of freedom and its cost.
Beth Bloom is a judge in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and Michael Weiser is the chairman of the Jack Miller Center.
