Hi all,
I had my oath ceremony in San Diego yesterday. It was a wonderful experience and now I am a US citizen.
We were supposed to be there at 8:30 a.m. but I got there an hour early. Needless to say there were already about 150 people standing in line. At 8:30 sharp they opened the doors and we walked inside the hall. We were asked to have the invitation letter and our green card handy. There were about 9 or 10 immigration officers sitting at tables, taking the green cards, checking the invitation letters. We received a little welcome package which consisted of a US flag, a booklet about rights and duties of US citizens and a letter from the president. We also received our invitation letter back. Then we were shown to our seats. At 9:40 a singer came on stage an sang 3 Xmas songs. After that the judge came on stage. He introduced himself and asked an immigration officer to come forward. The officer asked the judge formally to naturalize us. So the judge asked us all to stand up and raise our right hand. We repeated the oath after him and then he declared us all naturalized. We sang the Star-spangled banner, said the pledge of allegiance and then a speaker came on stage and congratulated us. The judge returned and read the countries we were all from and people were asked to stand up when their country was named. I liked that a lot. There were 665 people from 87 countries. I thought for sure that most people would be from Mexico, but not so. Most people were from the Phillipines. It was interesting. The singer came back on stage an sang 2 songs and then we were dismissed. When we left we had to stop by the immigration officers again and pick up our certificate. It was all very organized, there was no long wait in any line, they told us exactly where to go, it was just planned perfectly. Coming out of the hall we were swarmed by people from the political parties wanting us to register to vote and I happily did that. We didn't receive any passport applications, but I wouldn't have stood in line for that anyway. I have a post office that accepts passport applications nearby where I live. I was all done at about 11 a.m. It was a very emotional ceremony and I was glad they had some music there. I was so excited and the music calmed me down a little bit.
I guess next thing I do is applying for my passport.
I wish you all that your waiting time won't be very long and that everything works out okay. Good luck to you all.
Tina.
