50 New U.S. Citizens Take Oath at Bellevue Ceremony

Fifty local immigrants from all over the world took the oath to become U.S. citizens at a naturalization ceremony at Bellevue City Hall on Sept. 17, 2013. The ceremony was organized by the Bellevue Downtown Association and the City of Bellevue.

Notable naturalized citizens in Bellevue welcomed the new citizens sworn in by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mayor Conrad Lee, a U.S. citizen who was born in China, offered welcome remarks. Faisal Jaswal, a Bellevue resident and Assistant Dean of Student Programs at Bellevue College, delivered the ceremony’s keynote address. He came to Bellevue as an international student in March 1982 from Karachi, Pakistan.  

About 30 percent of Bellevue’s 130,000 residents were born outside of the United States, according to the U.S. Census. 

-- Information provided by the Bellevue Downtown Association