Almost 500 new citizens take oath -- 'faces replenishing democracy'
Almost 500 newly minted Americans from 84 countries, two dozen of them already serving in the U.S. military, swore their oath of citizenship in a moving 34th annual Independence Day Naturalization Ceremony at the Seattle Center.
"Every year I get to see the faces that are replenishing democracy," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a welcoming speech.
The ceremony took place against a backdrop of tense times, with the Trump Administration's Zero Tolerance policy having separated immigrant parents from their children at the southern border. Thousands have demonstrated against that policy, here and across the country.
Every mention of America's "diversity" got a rousing roar of approval from the crowd.
Yet, the citizens sworn in Wednesday are those who have played by the rules, taking and passing a difficult test. "They give you 100 questions, but you do not get asked all of them -- You have to know everything," joked Nicometes Gomez, the lone new citizen from the Central American nation of Belize.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., joked that the new citizens already know her as "one of the two possible answers to question 20: 'Who are Washington's two U.S. Senators?"
"Your country is a country of immigrants," Cantwell told them. "Despite what you may hear on the news, that is more true than ever." She quoted President John F. Kennedy: "Every immigrant has strengthened American life."
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