Congratulations, Dalia!

It is a pleasure so soon after the 4th of July, our Independence Day, to welcome someone who has just become a citizen of the United States of America.

Dalia is a friend and coworker at Affordable American Insurance. Here she is, with her three children, in front of Mt. Rushmore, a symbol of the best this country has to offer.

Dalia had been studying and preparing for citizenship for years. Finally last week, her dream became a reality in a ceremony in which she, along with about 280 others from 75 countries, were officially naturalized citizens of the United States.

I have always been proud of the fact that ours is a nation of immigrants, welcoming new citizens from around the world. We have been greatly enriched by that process. We have provided sanctuary for the oppressed, economic opportunity for the disadvantaged, and hope for the downtrodden. In return, our nation has been greatly blessed by the hard work and creativity of our newest citizens.

Welcome, Dalia. We hope you are as blessed to be here as we are to have you here!

My family has only been in this land for a few generations, so I too am a beneficiary of the largesse of a nation that opens its heart to the world with these immortal words, engraved on a bronze plaque, mounted inside the Statue of Liberty:

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
—Emma Lazarus, 1883