TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Oct 4, 2022

Forty people became U.S. citizens yesterday during the Middle District of Tennessee’s first in-person naturalization ceremony since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tennessean reports. The ceremony was held at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage and included an address from Chief District Court Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. “We are Americans because our citizenship is grounded on a foundation of shared ideas brought from many countries, many races and many cultures,” Crenshaw told the crowd. He also emphasized responsibilities that come with citizenship, including voting and jury duty. There were 4,456 citizens naturalized in 2019 before COVID-19. That dropped to 932 in 2020 and 431 in 2021. So far this year, there have been 538, according to the Middle District of Tennessee.