January 25 marks an important event in our lives. Yunuen became a US citizen today at 10am this morning.
We woke early this morning and made our way downtown to the federal courthouse with Yun’s parents. There is a cafe onsight where we had a pretty nice breakfast. I had the traditional 2 eggs sunny side up, hasbrowns, and lots of bacon. This was a good start to the morning.
The ceremony began at 10am. It was a formal affair with a federal judge leading most of the event. As I understand, the Department of Immigration determines if individuals are fit for becoming citizens and the federal judge relies upon the information from the Department of Immigration to make the decision to grant citizenship. The many years of meetings, blood tests, and other biometrics culminated today with the judge granting Yun the desgination of US citizen.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t all Mexicans in the ceremony today. There were people from all over the world. Burundi, Ethipopia, Somalia, Russia, France, UK, China, and a number of other nations. There was a moment in the ceremony when individuals were allowed to share their stories. It was interesting to hear the various journies to the US. Yunuen also spoke to the audience and shared her story about becoming a citizen. It was great.
We learned shortly after the ceremony that Yun would have to surrender her permanent visa. This was a problem. We have plans to be in Mexico this weekend, but without a visa, we can’t get back in the US. Fortunately, US citizens are elgible for passports. The problem we had was that we had to have a reason to get a same-day passport. I was able to manfacture this quickly with reservations at some hotel in Hermosillo we’ve never visited, nor will ever visit. That was sufficient in itself to get Yun a passport in 40 minutes. Very nice. Weekend is back on schedule.