Citizenship Ritual May Be Ended

New Americans could soon be robbed of a rite of passage due to the desire of federal immigration officials to make the naturalization process more efficient.In this city of immigrants, 50,000 new citizens are naturalized each year at nearly daily citizenship ceremonies conducted at two of New York’s federal courthouses.A move that would bring an end to this longstanding tradition is under way.A top immigration official, Andrea Quarantillo, told The New York Sun she would ask federal judges here to give her office the authority to naturalize immigrants. Ms. Quarantillo, who is the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for New York City, said yesterday that if her request is granted she intends to dramatically alter the naturalization ceremony.Her suggestions are already rankling several judges, who say the ceremony is in danger of becoming less dignified.During a telephone interview yesterday, Ms. Quarantillo said she plans to submit a written proposal next month to court officials at the federal courthouses in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Her proposal requires the approval of the courts.Under Ms. Quarantillo’s plan, immigrants would no longer flock to courtrooms for naturalization, but to a federal office building. Instead of a speech delivered by a federal judge, new citizens would see a video address by President Bush and a video presentation of the history of immigration in this country.Some things of course would not change: the Pledge of Allegiance would be recited, the National Anthem would be sung, and the mainstay of the ceremony, the oath of citizenship, would be sworn. To this program, however, Ms. Quarantillo said she does intend to add a Lee Greenwood song.Ms. Quarantillo’s suggestion that judges be pushed out of the naturalization process is meeting stiff opposition in the U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn, which, at 800 citizens each week, naturalizes far more people than the federal bench does in Manhattan.Of the importance of the ceremony to the immigrants, the Brooklyn U.S. Courthouse’s chief judge, Edward Korman, said: “It is a day they will never forget. To turn this into a paper-pushing event diminishes its significance.”Federal judges say the job of swearing in the nation’s newest citizenry is often an emotionally uplifting way to begin a day full of criminal cases and acrimonious civil suits. During their remarks to the packed courtroom of new citizens, some judges tell how their own parents or grandparents went through the same ceremony not so long ago.“Being sworn in before a judge is the appropriate protocol,” a judge in Brooklyn, Nicholas Garaufis, said yesterday. “From my standpoint, the new citizens work very hard to earn their citizenship and they deserve to be recognized in the most dignified ceremony we can provide,” he said.Taking the ceremony out of the courthouse, Judge Garaufis said, threatened to turn the ceremony into the equivalent of “going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew your driver’s license.”On the morning of naturalization ceremonies, immigrants often line up at the courthouse in Brooklyn an hour before they have been instructed to arrive. The night prior some of them do dry-runs to the courthouse to make sure they know where they are going.In Brooklyn, the naturalizations take place in a ceremonial courtroom on the second floor, where a Depression-era mural titled “The Role of the Immigrant in the Industrial Development of America” spans three walls. It once hung in the dining hall at the immigrant station on Ellis Island.In the last two month, Ms. Quarantillo has told local court officials of her forthcoming proposal. Under law, the federal courts can voluntarily deputize immigration officials to conduct naturalization ceremonies. In some areas judicial districts have done so, often because courthouses fall behind schedule in offering the ceremonies. That is what happened in New Jersey, where Ms. Quarantillo worked for citizenship and immigration before taking the helm of the New York office in November, 2006. Ms. Quarantillo said her staff already does perform some naturalizations for the federal court in Manhattan.Ms. Quarantillo yesterday said she expected immigrants who are going through the naturalization process would appreciate her suggestions.With the go-ahead from the judiciary, Ms. Quarantillo said, her office could begin to offer naturalization on the same day her office approved a citizenship application. She called this “a win-win both for the agency and the applicant.”That would save new citizens the trouble of waiting several weeks to attend the courthouse naturalization ceremony, which could require taking yet another day off work, she said.“It’s a customer service benefit for people to only take one day off work,” Ms. Quarantillo said. “Our clients are very appreciative. Lots of people don’t get paid when they don’t go to work.”Performing the naturalization ceremonies on the third floor of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, would also save Ms. Quarantillo’s office the inconvenience of coming to the courthouses to guide applicants through the citizenship process and perform any name changes.She said her office would “protect the dignity of the ceremony” and would design a well-appointed room in which to conduct these naturalizations.“We’re keenly aware we have to match the dignity of the pomp and circumstance of the courtroom, and we’re making every effort to design our offices like it looks that way,” she said.How the judges of the U.S. courthouse in Manhattan will respond to her proposal is unclear. But the comments of judges in Brooklyn suggest that Ms. Quarantillo’s proposal appears likely to be rejected.“It’s their call,” Ms. Quarantillo said. “There are judges who really love” performing the ceremony, she said. “We have to be mindful of that.”

Citizenship Ritual May Be Ended

Citizenship Ritual May Be Ended

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