Good morning, everyone.

My name is Heather Wells, and I'm the acting field office director at the Oklahoma City US CIS office in Oklahoma City, and I'm very excited to be a part of your special day.

Before we get started, I just wanted to let you guys know that I am super excited to be here.

This is the best day of the month.

The best day are ceremony days.

And I have always noticed that people who seem to uh earn their citizenship value it more than the people that are born with it.

They take it, they take it more serious, they take it as very special.

And I've never walked in your shoes because I was a I'm a born citizen, but once I adopted my child from China and we stepped off the airplane in Detroit, Michigan, and she became a U.S.

citizen.

I think I understand now just how special it really is.

When I look at her and realize that my baby is now an American citizen.

Well, she's not a baby anymore, she's 19.

But once again, thank you for letting me be a part of your special days.

Now we will have everyone stand for the presentation of the colors by the Tulsa and uh police and fire department.

Please remain standing after the presentation of the colors for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Present homes.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republicans, my nation under God with liberty and justice.

Please be seated.

Before I administer the oath of allegiance, we are going to call each country of your former nationality so everyone can see where everybody is from.

It's always fun to see how many countries we have in a ceremony.

Today we have 20 people becoming citizens, and we have 10 countries.

So that's a lot of countries for 20 people.

So I when I call your country, please stand for a moment, wave your flag, your family can cheer for you, and then have a seat.

Argentina.

Canada.

Germany.

Hungary.

India.

Mexico.

Pakistan.

Philippines.

South Africa.

United Kingdom.

Are you guys ready?

Okay.

So I'm going to have you stand and raise your right hand and repeat after me.

Repeat with confidence.

This is your big moment.

I hereby declare on oath.

That I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure.

All allegiance and fidelity.

To any foreign prince.

Potentate.

State or sovereignty.

Of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.

That I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

And that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States.

When required by law.

When required by law.

That I will perform work of national importance.

Under civilian direction.

When required by the law.

And that I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

For purpose of evasion.

So help me God.

You are all now United States citizens.

You may be seated.

Do you feel different?

Does your heart feel full?

Okay.

Good.

Congratulations.

Now we will welcome Mayor Monroe Nichols.

Well, thank thank you.

Thank you, Heather.

Um, and congratulations.

Congratulations and and welcome.

Um welcome, welcome, welcome.

Uh, before I go too far, I want to make sure I introduce my partner upstairs in the mayor's office, our deputy mayor Chris Arrayas, Crystal.

Um, and I saw our city auditor Nathan Picard back in the back.

Thank you for being here, Nathan.

And I want to give a special shout out uh to our Office of Resilience and Equity, led by our chief resilience officer, DeAndre Hayes.

Um, you know, I get the great pleasure of doing these every once in a while, and they're the they're the they're the best thing to ever do.

Because I imagine what it must feel like, I hope it feels like when you stand up, citizens of one country and you sit down, citizens of this country.

Uh I I gotta imagine that's really really cool.

It's something that I've never felt because I was born in Texas in 1983.

Yeah, I know, I know, it's okay.

It's alright.

I get it.

I never talked about that while I was running for mayor.

I can only talk about it now, now that I am the mayor.

Um, but because of that, uh I didn't have to, I didn't necessarily have to do the things that it took to intentionally become a citizen of this country.

I got to enjoy that at birth, and what's really interesting about that for me is as a kid born in 1983, um, I was born at a time where even the rights that I have as America are much better than my parents did, uh, my grandparents.

And so what I recognize is that whether you've been in this country uh as a citizen for I don't know what what is it now?

We're we're about three minutes in or something like that.

Whether it's been three minutes or 30 years or 40 years, the history of this country is we all really do have to work for it.

We have to work for it so that it it means something when you stand up, take that oath, and sit back down, that it means something when you represent an entire city as mayor.

It's the work that we all get to and have to and are obligated to do together.

And so I welcome you into America as official citizens into this work to build the strongest country that we can possibly build, to build the strongest city that we can possibly build.

What that means in my view that means that as you come here from Argentina or Canada or Germany or Hungary or India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK, that that you bring all that with you.

I believe this country is the strongest country in the world because we are the great aggregator of diversity from every other part of the globe.

And so that means that what it means to be an American is it means to have a diverse mindset to be about hard work to make sure that we're respecting everybody and doing all the things, but that when we aggregate all those cultures up, we are the strongest country in the entire world.

And so that means that all of you, citizens now for six minutes, maybe represent the great strength of America and the great strength of the American story.

And so I want to say thank you.

Thank you for putting in the work.

Thank you for reminding those of us who were born here of why this country is special and why people still want to be a part of it.

This represents the strongest part of us.

And so I say welcome as your mayor.

If there's anything we can do at this in at the city, I can guarantee you we will.

Excited, elated to be in this work of building a strong, strong country with each of you.

Congratulations, and welcome home.

So go down that row and shake hands, right?

I'm gonna use this one, I think.

Rohan Sanjay Manakar.

Congratulations, sir.

Lizette Karina Aguilar Vergara.

Congratulations.

Lucia Perez Hernandez.

Congratulations.

Catalyn Nemeth.

Congratulations, ma'am.

Nice.

Congratulations, sir.

Congratulations.

Jeanette Kahn.

Congratulations to you.

Michael Kevin Broomhall.

Congratulations, sir.

Congratulations.

Olaf Peter Christine.

Congratulations, sir.

Maria Alisa Saldana de Trevino.

Congratulations all of thank you.

Thank you.

Tracy Ann Maddis.

Congratulations and Lorraine Bernice Dorsey.

Xander Barnard.

Congratulations.

Maria Virginia Goni.

Congratulations, Julio Abel Guimara.

Congratulations, sir.

Congratulations.

Daniel De Casas.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Enrique Segala Munoz.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Faith.

Brother Noosa Young.

Congratulations, ma'am.

Congratulations.

Marco Antonio Jamio.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

Good job.

Congratulations.

Kenneth John McGregor.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Esther Segala.

Congratulations, ma'am.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Congratulations once again.

One more big round of applause.

Now we will have, excuse me.

Now we will have closing remarks from Tabitha Adam.

Once again, congratulations to you all.

I am truly elated for each one of you because I know that this is not just the end of the process, it also marks the beginning of a new era in the story.

My name is Tabuka Locasado, and I am the immigrant and refugee affairs manager here at the city of Tulsa's Department of Resilience and Equity.

Now I just want to take a brief moment to acknowledge what it took for you to be here today.

I know that this process is not just about time, it is about new systems that you had to navigate.

It is also about things that you had to unlearn and relearn.

It was also about core memories from your home countries that you had to carry with you along the journey.

So I want to say congratulations.

Now, I know that it is possible that as immigrants we may all have arrived here through different parts.

But when you truly look at it, the immigrant journey, it's a shared experience, different parts, but we all have familiar feelings.

And that is why today matters.

That is what unites us as immigrants because even though we all came here through different paths, we are united in hope and also united and committed in a shared experience to build a future here in this great country.

Now, I'm saying all these things for you to understand that I know what it takes for you to be here today.

And I'm not just here as another city official, I'm here as a fellow immigrant who understands what it takes for you to get to this milestone.

So I'll take just a minute to applaud your resilience, your strength, your dedication, and also above all, I want to applaud your perseverance going through and whatever it takes, the sacrifice that it took for you to be where you are today.

So once again, congratulations.

I'd like to thank our deputy mayor uh Reyes.

I also want to thank our chief resilience officer Durante Reyes.

Thank you so much.

I also want to thank our USCIS officer, uh Heather Wells, thank you so much for being here.

I want to thank Officer Donovett.

Thank you for always being present at this ceremonies.

I want to also thank the police department and the fire department.

Thank you also to the Moore team.

Thank you so much for being here.

I also want to thank all these beautiful families and friends that are here today.

Yes, you have made this ceremony such a beautiful one.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Now I want to take some few minutes to quickly just go over uh the resources that we have at Department of Resilience and Equity that will be of great benefit to you.

Now, the city of Tulsa is committed to building a more equitable and more inclusive city for all of us, and so we we as a department we have resources that will be of great benefit to you, and I would like for all of you to uh when you look into your go bags, you have flyers of all the programs that we have, but I will just take a moment to go through two.

We have the language access program.

Uh it's one of the programs that we have here which ensures that our multilingual tossers can fully access city resources, vital information, and whatever service it is that you need to be part of this city.

We also have we work closely with authorities, boards, and commission.

And uh these commissions are made up of people from all over our community.

It means that these commissions are culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse.

And so we want to encourage all of you to volunteer to serve on these commissions.

Uh we have commissions that are dedicated to Native Americans, uh, black Americans, Latinos, Asians, women, and just human rights issues in general.

So we want to encourage you if you are interested in serving on any of these committees, you can go to the City of Tulsa website and you will find our application there.

But we also have some of the application forms outside, and so once the ceremony is over, you can step outside there.

There will be somebody there to answer your questions and also help you fill out the application.

Uh since uh this is a very important milestone, we would like to create a call memory with you.

We are going to take a photo with the mayor and the deputy mayor right after this.

So you would come all the way over here and we'll take this photo.

You can find this photo at on our Facebook page at Resilient Tulsa.

Uh when you look at your program, you go all the way, go all the way to the bottom.

You have the information there.

Resilient Tulsa, you can find this photo there.

This ceremony is also being recorded.

You can find it on T Gov.

It also has the information right here where you can go back and watch you and your family so that you can remember this day.

Once again, congratulations to you all.

Thank you so much.

We're gonna be right in this area.

Right here.

And if you can maybe turn sideways for me, uh this way.

So from the turn in this way.

And from over, we'll come this way.

There you go.

And everybody just come in as close as you can.

All right, guys.

Oil workers, business owners, and civic.