Twenty new Americans from 10 countries publicly declared their allegiance to the United States Constitution before friends, relatives, and public officials at a naturalization ceremony Friday afternoon, May 3, in Lebanon County’s packed Courtroom No. 1.
President Judge John C. Tylwalk, Jr. and Judge Charles T. Jones, Jr. presided over the ceremony.
After U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services examiner Sylvie Glassberg assured the court that each of the candidates had met all citizenship requirements, they stood and raised their right hands as Tylwalk administered the oath set by law.
Once they collectively declared their acceptance of the obligations of U.S. citizens “freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God,” Tylwalk congratulated them and the courtroom erupted into prolonged applause.
The new American citizens and their countries of origin are:
Aaron Conrad Mullins, Jamaica; Sunita Thapa Rai, Nepal; Lesley Ann Reed, Martyn Lee Reed, and Morgan Lee Reed, United Kingdom; Ralph Widmaer Presume, Haiti; Mohamed Ahmed Khamis Saleh, Egypt; Lila Gurung, Bhutan; Kimlak Lun, Cambodia; Carlos Reyes Bedolla, Mexico; Mike Sawhney, India; Luis Gonzalez Ledesma, Johanna Rashie Tse Ramirez, Juan Manuel Sepulveda Luperon, Elsa Jovanna Marcelino, Arlheys Taveras Ortiz, Jorge Emilio Martinez Polanco, Anyelo Enrique Ricart Sanchez, Miguel Angel Santos Valera, and Lisbeth Nicol Alvarez Quinones, Dominican Republic.
The road to United States citizenship
Naturalization is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a non-citizen who has met the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Prospective citizens must have been lawful permanent residents for at least five continuous years and physically present in the U.S. for at least 30 months in the last five years. They must be of “good moral character” and “attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.”
Once those requirements are met, naturalization applicants must take the Oath of Allegiance in a public ceremony.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “878,500 new citizens [were sworn in] in fiscal year 2023 during naturalization ceremonies held across the United States and around the world. Naturalizations in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 made up nearly a quarter (24%) of all naturalizations over the past decade.”
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