By JAVIER MANJARRES

The historic Freedom Tower in Miami, Florida, was the setting for the swearing in of 211 foreign nationals as U.S. citizens. Of the 211, the top five nations of origin that saw their past citizens swear allegience to the United States were, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.

To deliver the keynote address was Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who spoke to us about immigration reform prior to the commencement of the event.


The Congresswoman, who supports Senator Rubio’s Senate immigration reform bill, said the House bill would be different, adding that Speaker Boehner said that they (the House) was going work their will “with seperate House measures” beginning with border security first and an E-Verify system. Ros-Lehtinen added that “its not going to be a big bill, because Obamacare made a lot of people suspicious of big bills, so the House will have 5 or 6 smaller bills.”

After the 211 newly minted U.S. Citizens swore to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, many of them exited the Freedom Tower only to be greeted by a team of High School Republicans, who seized the opportunity to register to vote a significant portion of them. While many of these citizens struggled with the English language, the ones that did register to vote understood the form and seamed receptive to the Republican Party.

The Democrats were nowhere to be found on the sunny 4th of July afternoon in downtown Miami. Perhaps they were out sunbathing across the bay on Miami Beach?