As if anticipating Pope Francis’ address before Independence Hall in Philadelphia the next day, an emotional naturalization ceremony at the U.S. District Court in Atlanta warmly welcomed 154 immigrants as U.S. citizens on Sept. 25.
U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May said that she felt privileged and “nothing but joy” in fulfilling her duties in welcoming the new citizens.
“Each one has a powerful story of effort and hardwork to become a citizen,” she told Global Atlanta in her office at the federal courthouse prior to the ceremony.
Members of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office, the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution and the League of Women Voters attended the ceremony.
The Towers High School JROTC Color Guard presented the colors. The Atlanta acapella group Octave then sang the national anthem at the beginning of the ceremony and closed it with “God Bless America.”
The 20 South Koreans who were naturalized at the ceremony represented the largest group of immigrants from one country. Mexico, India and Vietnam each had more than 10 native sons and daughters participating in the ceremony.
The seven from Bhutan were the largest number ever to become naturalized citizens from that country in a single ceremony at the courthouse.
Out of 40 countries represented, there were 12 Asian, 10 Latin American, six African, six Middle Eastern, five European and Canada in North America.
The participants in many cases chose to attend the courtroom ceremony as opposed to one at Turner Field or other immigration ceremony because they wanted to have their names changed. To do that they have to legally register through the court.
At least 24 decided to add an American name to their given name — some of the “Americanized” names included: Mark, Celine, Amy, Joan, June, Wendy, Grace, Sean, Johnny, Luke, Robert and Jessica.
Bachir Mihoubi, who is originally from Algeria and currently an Atlanta resident, gave an emotionally charged address that was greeted with applause by many who rose to give him a standing ovation.
As if briefed on the pope’s message in Philadelphia for immigrants to hold on to their heritages while adapting to new lives, Mr. Mihoubi spoke of how he was able to advance his career through his mastery of languages including fluency in English, French, Arabic, and Spanish with some proficiency in Portuguese and Italian.
He recognized early on, he said, the importance of English and encouraged everyone to learn English because of its prevalence throughout the world in business. But his message was not to forsake native languages; rather it was to apply their languages as a means of advancing their careers.
Mr. Mihoubi’s background includes the acquisition of degrees in England, Canada and the U.S. providing the foundation for his legal career, he said, as well as the ability to launch his company, the Francounsel Group, providing company-specific international franchise development programs for brands targeting Europe, Asia, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East.
He first came to the United States to work as a legal translator at Louisiana State University‘s law school in 1985 under an H1 visa. He entered in the labor certification process in 1987, obtaining a green card in 1990. In 1998 he applied for citizenship and was naturalized in 1999.
Among his keys to success, he mentioned his acquisition of legal translation skills between French and English, which eventually motivated him to acquire a law degree from the University of Texas in Austin, Texas.
He passed the Georgia bar exam once he decided to settle in Atlanta, which he chose out of all the cities in the U.S. because of the city’s ambitions to become a center of international commerce.
Mr. Mihoubi underscored the value of this international background when he first arrived in Atlanta and applied to law firms because very few local attorneys had the language skills he possessed.
He was surprised to learn that one of the immigrants about to be naturalized was from Palestine because he had very recently been working on a project in Ramallah, the administrative headquarters of the Palestinian state.
Instead of holding him back in the U.S., he said that his international experience had had the opposite effect and that he even is often hired by the U.S. Commerce Department to help with its efforts to assist U.S. companies overseas.
“The genius of this country is the way that it absorbs immigrants,” he said, adding that “The more you travel, the more you appreciate this country.”
He called the U.S. “a transactional country” that determines a person’s future by what he or she learns to do rather than through nepotism. “You don’t have to buy bread from your cousin,” he added.
While praising the established rule of law and transparency in most dealings in the U.S., he also acknowledged the current anti-immigrant political climate and focused the remainder of his remarks on providing “facts” that counter the negative concerns.
“The essence of this country is immigrants,” he said underscoring the importance of immigrants in starting businesses, creating jobs for themselves and other Americans.
He also praised the founders of cutting-edge technologies who went on to found public companies such as Sergey Brin, a founder of Google Inc. who came to the U.S. from Russia as a child; Pierre Omidyar, the French-born Iranian-American, who founded the eBay auction site; Jerry Yang, a native of Taiwan and a founder of Yahoo Inc. and Hungarian-born American Andrew Grove of Intel Corp. — not to mention Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs, whose biological father immigrated from Syria.
“Foreign-born investors are credited with contributing to more than 75 percent of the patents issued by the top patent producing universities,” Mr. Mihoubi added. He also mentioned that 25 percent of U.S. Nobel laureates are foreign born.
In conclusion, he quoted former President John Kennedy who said while a senator during a similar ceremony:
“Now your future is in your hands for no distinction is made between the native born and the naturalized citizen, and no limitation is played upon the distance that your talents and abilities can take you.”
Once the ceremony was completed, the newly naturalized citizens were invited to enjoy refreshments outside of the courtroom and sign voter registration forms.
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