Clutching a rolled-up American flag in one hand, Mahmoud Saad couldn’t stop grinning today as he sat beside 15 other immigrants in a jury box inside a Redding courtroom.
After all, the 26-year-old Egyptian Chico State University electrical engineering student had been waiting for much his life to recite the words that would make him a U.S. citizen.
But it was the special honor of leading the group in the Pledge of Allegiance earlier in the naturalization ceremony in U.S. Eastern District Court that had special meaning for Saad.
“They’re not just words, ‘With liberty and justice for all,’ ” he said prior to the ceremony in the courthouse parking lot, his four friends from Chico beside him. Each held an American flag.
The event was the first ceremony in recent memory offered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to be held in Redding, allowing Northern California immigrants to avoid a lengthy drive to Sacramento or San Francisco to take their citizenship oaths.
A Canadian, a Czech, two Indians, a Kenyan, seven Mexicans and three Filipinos joined Saad in taking their oath.
Each had been in the country for at least three years, living legally in the U.S. first as a permanent resident with a green card visa.
“You can’t simply immigrate,” said Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for the USCIS.
For a nonresident to come to the country, someone — usually a parent or a spouse already in the country — must first petition for an immigrant’s green card visa.
An employer can also petition for a green card visa for an employee, but it’s unlikely that someone who doesn’t have at least a bachelor’s degree would be allowed in through that route, Rummery said.
Others can request asylum from their home. A judge can also grant a green card visa during a deportation hearing, Rummery said.
But a few lucky ones like Saad are drawn in what’s known colloquially as the green card visa Lottery, which is officially called the USCIS Diversity Visa Program.
Hundreds of thousands apply from all over the world, but only 55,000 immigrant visas are granted each year.
Most at Redding’s ceremony had family in the United States that allowed them into the country in the first place. Others married in.
The latter was the case for Norma Muzzall, a 37-year-old Mexican immigrant who married a Chico delivery driver named Mark Muzzall, 42.
The two now live in Corning with their two children.
“Hey, you get to vote now,” Mark Muzzall said after the ceremony.
“I know!” she said.
But first, she said, she gets to pick a political party.
“He’s a Republican and his mom’s a Democrat,” Norma Muzzall said. “They’re both trying to convince me to pick their party.”
It was America’s political process that brought Rodolfo G. Lagoc, a 73-year-old retired lawyer from the Philippines who lives in Redding down the path to U.S. citizenship.
“The freedom from want, the freedom from fear, you have peace and order,” Lagoc said.
For Saad, becoming a citizen means he at last belongs.
“I used to feel like I was a part from this place,” Saad said. “Now I feel like I am officially a part of this country.”
Reporter Ryan Sabalow can be reached at 225-8344 or at rsabalow@redding.com.
[Source: Redding]