Sing Ing Carter lived in the United States for over two decades before she became a citizen on Thursday.
Carter said she did not think she needed to become an American citizen for a long time. Her husband is a U.S. citizen, and she said they were also debating for a long time whether to move back to her home country of Malaysia.
Eventually, she decided it had been long enough. She applied for citizenship last summer and was surprised that the official naturalization ceremony at the Hotel Royer in Urbana took place almost a year after her interview.
But that delay meant she became a citizen two days before America’s 250th anniversary.
“It’s easy for me to remember and for my grandkid to remember too,” Carter said.
More than 50 people from over 20 countries became citizens at the event.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin attended and urged the new citizens not to take their right to vote for granted.
“Be informed and vote. Never miss an election. I don’t care how you vote one way or another, but people died for your right to vote and they work hard to protect that right today,” Durbin said.
The Illinois Democrat announced last year that he would not seek re-election to the U-S Senate. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, a Democrat, will face former Illinois Republican Party Chair Don Tracy in the contest for his seat this November.
New citizen Monique Masengu said voting is the first thing she is excited to do as a citizen.
Masengu moved from Congo to Champaign-Urbana at 9 years old, after her family won a green card through the State Department’s Diversity Visa lottery system encouraging applicants from countries with lower immigration levels to the US.
She said she has felt like a citizen for years. But when she turned 18, she could not vote.
“Seeing all my friends in my graduate class be able to vote, I was a little — not jealous, but a little envious,” Masengu said.
Now, she’s 20 and officially became a citizen at the Thursday naturalization ceremony.
Masengu is studying at Loyola University to become the first female doctor in her family.