TOPEKA, Kan, Jan 28, (AP): Carlos Wriedt came to the US from Mexico in his 40s with his wife to pursue their dream of starting a business and to build a better life for their daughter, then 10 months old. He and his wife became US citizens Monday, taking their oaths in a ceremony at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, along with 28 others, as their families watched, waved small flags and recorded the event on their cellphones.

Wriedt, his wife and his daughter have lived in the US for more than 20 years, and he and his wife now have a business in Wichita offering translation services to courts, medical providers and others. Wriedt had a green card proving he is a legal permanent resident, and ahead of last year's election - in which President Donald Trump made illegal immigration a key issue - he wasn't worried that he wouldn't be able to renew.

But he and his wife applied for citizenship anyway. Their daughter became a citizen in September. After he and the other immigrants sang the concluding "home of the brave” in the National Anthem, took the oath renouncing foreign princes and potentates and pledged allegiance to the American flag, Wriedt said he still had goosebumps but that he also felt relief.

"Now, nobody can take that away from us unless we misbehave - but of course we won't,” he said. The US naturalized more than 818,000 new citizens from October 2023 through September 2024, an average of about 68,000 a month, according to the federal government. In Topeka, the 30 new citizens came from 18 different nations, and the ceremony gave speakers a chance to stress their own immigrant roots, with Kansas Gov  Laura Kelly noting that her family emigrated from Ireland.

But it also occurred against the backdrop of Trump's promise of mass deportations of immigrants living in the US illegally, his suspension of refugee resettlements and his effort to end the constitutional promise of birthright citizenship for children born in the US to immigrant parents. "I’m disappointed at the climate and the rhetoric right now,” said Kansas state Rep. Tobias Schlingensiepen, a Topeka Democrat and United Church of Christ minister.

"It promotes people with short fuses doing things they shouldn’t do.” Yet Schlingensiepen was heartened by the ceremony and it brought back memories. This year will mark the 50th anniversary of his own naturalization as a 13-year-old immigrant from Germany. He has attended other ceremonies, and he stopped to watch Monday's after coming across it during a break in legislative meetings.