MACON — At the naturalization ceremony here each spring in the federal courthouse, a solemn and yet spirited event where new citizens are minted, those gathered sing “God Bless America” and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. One year, an especially patriotic fellow showed up dressed as Benjamin Franklin.
Other times, the chief U.S. District judge presiding has joked that the event is one of only two occasions when everyone leaves court happy. (The other is at courthouse marriages when, as the judge put it, “we hope everybody’s happy.”)
At Wednesday’s annual citizenship ceremony, 22 people from 15 nations were sworn in.
Red-white-and-blue cake was served. Miniature American flags were doled out.
One of those star-spangled pennants caught the fancy of an 8-year-old girl from South America named Zara Montano.
Zara was born in 2016 while her mother was a refugee in Ecuador, having fled violence in her Pacific-port hometown during what at the time was perhaps the deadliest region in her mother’s native Colombia.
Now here Zara was twirling in her fingers the tiny banner of a new land.
In an era when the debate over immigration, particularly unlawful border crossings, has been more heated and politicized, Wednesday’s assembly was an august, unifying scene.
“Each of you,” Judge Marc T. Treadwell proclaimed, “is admitted as a citizen of the United States with all the privileges and responsibilities associated with such privileges. Congratulations.”
For Zara’s mother, Karen Caicedo, 32, the bloodshed in Buenaventura, Colombia, a decade ago left her no choice but to seek a life in another country.
She recalls “a lot of guns” and how, back then, “you can’t go outside.”
She and her husband, Javier Montano, and their infant son, Enzo, spent two and a half years in a rented house in neighboring Ecuador. Conditions there were not much better. But a flight to the U.S. in 2017 with help from a Lutheran organization landed Caicedo and her children in Jacksonville, Florida. Her husband stayed behind but came to the States in 2019.
By then, Caicedo had moved to Georgia and a Christian service community a dozen miles northeast of Athens known as Jubilee Partners.
She was at first wary of the woods, the rural countryside, and wanted to go back home. “But after one night,” Caicedo said, “I was happy to be there.”
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Over that past 40-plus years, the place in Madison County has been home to 4,000 or so people from 35 countries.
“The people there are dedicated to serving recently arrived refugees and immigrants,” said Angie Martin, a friend of Caicedo’s who was a Jubilee volunteer when Caicedo and her children arrived. “Many families or single mothers come and spend a few months or a year there. They get English classes and help with going to doctors’ appointments and all the getting-situated things that are necessary. And then they eventually move somewhere else once they kind of have their sea legs.”
According to most recent U.S. naturalization figures, during a 12-month span that ended in September, nearly 879,000 people became citizens at ceremonies similar to the one in Macon on Wednesday. Of those, nearly 55% were women, and the largest age group among those women were, like Caicedo, in their 30s.
Caicedo was also part of the smallest group of admission classifications: refugees, who comprised about 3% of new citizens in the last year for which statistics are available.
She has earned a GED diploma, learned to speak English and she now works as an interpreter.
On Wednesday, Caicedo said she was “just happy to get this step” as a citizen “and move forward.”
Half an hour after she took the Oath of Allegiance, with daughter Zara at her side in the rear of the courtroom, Caicedo pondered her journey.
Not only was she now a citizen, so were her children.
“And,” Zara, still clutching that flag, said, “on July Fourth there will be a parade.”
