Faced with the hassle of renewing my green card, I instead decided to once and for all be done with the pleasures of dealing with the INS and go instead for the full status of a US citizen. That process came to an end this week when I was finally sworn in as a US citizen in a surprisingly moving ceremony where in and a 99 other immigrants from 40 countries where welcomed to the US by a video from President Obama, took an oath and a pledge and sand the national anthem and were then forced to listen to that awful “proud to be an American” song from the first Gulf war (what happened to “america the beautiful” or “this land is our land”?)
Anyway, a nice end to a long bureaucratic process that enables me to still have my Irish citizenship with also having the full rights of a us citizen.
Great to have your citizenship sorted out-well done and congrats.
Nice too that you hold on to your Irish citizenship.
Sounds like a nice ceremony except for that one song. 🙂
Congrats again! We found the no.1 thing about being a citizen is not having to deal with the Department of Immigration again! It is great being able to have dual citizenship. During our ceremony, there was lots of mention of given up your native citizenship which I think would feel really strange. Dual is much better (or “heaps” better if I’m being an Aussie!).