New Citizens on the Missouri: A Park Service Naturalization Ceremony

Soon-to-be U.S. citizens stand during the naturalization ceremony at the National Park Service Midwest Regional Office. NPS/S. Biessel.

On a sunny autumn morning in Omaha, Nebraska, 24 people became the United States' newest citizens. They came from Mexico, Iran, Vietnam, Morocco, the Philippines, Somalia, Burma, Kenya, Lebanon, Honduras, Iraq, Syria, Cuba, Australia, the United Kingdom and Bhutan.

The ceremony, held on October 5, 2023, was a partnership between the National Park Service and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). It took place at the Park Service's Midwest Regional Office, which shares its site with the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The office overlooks the Missouri River, which once carried the Corps of Discovery through vast Native homelands on its way to the Pacific Ocean.

Regional Director Bert Frost congratulates a new U.S. citizen. NPS/S. Biessel.

The keynote

Midwest Regional Director Bert Frost gave the keynote address. He opened with the words of George Washington:

"…America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

Frost then told his own family's immigrant story. His grandparents came to the United States and started out as farmers, and within two generations one of their descendants was a college professor, which he called the American dream made real. Because of choices his family made generations earlier, he told the new citizens, he could now stand before them to honor, congratulate and welcome them. He closed by thanking them: "We are a nation of immigrants. Thank you for adding to our story."

Citizenship in the parks

The Park Service and USCIS have a partnership that encourages them to co-host naturalization ceremonies in parks and other places set aside for public enjoyment and historical commemoration. Since 2006, the two agencies have welcomed thousands of new citizens at parks, monuments and historic sites, connecting new Americans with the nation's most historic places. In 2023 alone, nearly a dozen ceremonies were held in parks across the Park Service's Midwest Region.

Sources

• National Park Service, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, "National Park Service hosts naturalization ceremony on the banks of the Missouri River." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/mwro-hosts-naturalization-ceremony-sept-2023.htm
• The source's list of the new citizens' countries names Somalia twice; it is listed once here.