New US immigration centre opens in Florida

August 14 2009 by Rebekah Nahai

New US immigration centre in Florida

The grand opening ceremony for the new US Citizenship & Immigration Services building in Palm Beach, Florida, took place yesterday in the 8,000 square foot facility.

The centre is expected to process 57,000 US immigration applicants annually. Of the more than one million immigrants who become US citizens every year, about 8,000 obtain residency in Palm Beach country.

The grand opening celebration coincided with the naturalisation ceremonies of 25 new citizens, some of who made the move to the US as much as 30 years ago.

New citizen Martin Bologna of Boca Raton, Florida, moved to the US from Italy in 1971.

"This country has been so kind," he said. "There are a lot of places in the world where people are not free. We have a lot of freedom here."

Kalvin Berice Lindo, 55, who moved to the US from Jamaica 30 years before he gained US citizenship, said after the ceremony: "There's no place else but where I am right now. It means everything to me."

After California, Florida has one of the highest immigration rates of all US states.

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