The story of my wife's oath ceremony

[mspencer 0]

My wife was scheduled to appear for her oath ceremony at the courthouse for the District of Western New York at 8:00 A.M. on October 21, 2008, on Court Street in Buffalo, New York. Since it was early in the morning and we live 90 miles south of Buffalo, we stayed overnight in the impressive Adam's Mark Hotel four blocks away, which was inexpensive for a downtown hotel in a major city. Most of the 50 people who were to take their oath showed up in good time, but surprisingly there were a small number who showed up 10 or 20 minues late.

As I waited with them, I could tell that a good many of the people there were very nervous (though they were very happy at the end).

At 8:00 A.M. in the 6th floor courtroom where we met, the immigration officer in charge of the ceremony made many remarks about the ceremony, and then people were called forward one by one to the table in front to turn in their green cards and the appointment letter, which the people were supposed to fill out and sign that morning. There were questions to fill out on the back of the letter asking for example if they had been arrested or travelled outside the country since their interview weeks before.

Then finally eveyone was told to stand because the judge was coming in. The judge was a bankruptcy judge who made it obvious duirng the ceremony that he was delighted to help the people there become citizens of the United States. There were 50 people there from 30 countries on every continent. For example there were half a dozen people from different African countries.

Then the people were told to stand in the court. No one had to memorize the oath, since every part was read to the people there and all they had to do was verbally assent to what was said. Then each individual was called forward to receive their certificate of naturalization from the judge. Some people had brought cameras and those who came with them took their picture in front of the courtroom standing next to the judge and holding up their certificate of naturalization. The judge smiled the whole time as this was going on and greeted everyone. And so the ceremony ended.

The only thing left for the people to do was to check their certificate of naturalization for errors and sign it. If there was any error, they were told to bring it forward there and they would get a correct certificate that day or the next day. Quite a good singer, who in fact has the head lawyer for the City of Buffalo, sang patriotic songs such as the national anthem at one point during the ceremony. Off-hand, I would have thought this would be an unimpressive part of the ceremony but this was a happy and likeable part of the ceremony.

At the very end the people there were very happy.

For my own part it was the end of four years of many forms and documents and much anxiety, which began after I was married to my wife in the Philippines. Right at the beginning, if she had not been given a visa to come to the United States, she would have been in the Philippines unable to come and I would have been in the United States.

During the next hour after we left we had two copies of the naturalization certificate made at our hotel and then we went to the nearby post office to apply for my wife's passport. The Department of State has a website that allows you to call up the passport application and type in the answers with your computer, and print it off So we had this all ready. We didn't like the fact though that we had to send in the original copy of the naturalization certificate with the passport application (which though they were to send back). I had called the passport office a few days before and the department of state information officer who answered the phone said that I would get the passport in a month, or in two weeks if I asked for it to be expedited (at twice the cost).

The next day we went to the Board of Elections in our county, Cattaraugus County, and gave them the voting registratrion form for my wife. The deadline for registering in time to vote in the Presidential election had been 2 weeks before, but there was a special exemption for those who had just become citizens, and they told us that my wife could vote in the election November, 4, though it was just 2 weeks away.

I hope you find this helpful. I hd wondered myself about many things concerning this event.