Welcome to Kentucky's Newest Citizen

I wrote about this three years ago when the Transy protest started. I am surprised and pleased that it has turned out well. Protest does work - especially when you put the pressure on your congress critters.

From the Courier:

Lino Nakwa was a hardworking immigrant who after eight years in a refugee camp came to America, where he raised his four brothers and sisters in Louisville and sent them off to college.

He himself graduated with honors from Transylvania University, where he was beloved by students and faculty.

But in 2008, the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services denied him residency — opening him to being deported — because a terrorist group that abducted him when he was 12 years old and held him captive for a month also gave him military training.

After an outcry from fellow Transy students — and the intervention of Kentucky’s congressional delegation — the government reopened Nakwa’s case, and this May he was granted his green card.

Friday, he (was) sworn in as a citizen of the United States.

Nakwa, 32, will take the oath from U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II along with 276 other immigrants from 66 countries in a naturalization ceremony at the Gall House that is part of Louisville’s three-day WorldFest 2011.

After spending most of his life as a refugee, Nawka said he will finally feel like he belongs somewhere.

“I am overwhelmed by joy,” he said in an interview this week.

Those who fought for his right to remain in his adopted country are celebrating with him.

“He is a model citizen-to-be who has cared for his family and gone through untold horrors and overcame them and made a new life for himself,” Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, said in an interview.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said in a statement that “I join the many people across the commonwealth who were touched by the story of Mr. Lino Nakwa in congratulating him on becoming a United States citizen.”

Neil Barry, a Transylvania graduate, led the grassroots campaign for Nawka because he said “he was my friend, and I felt an injustice had been done to him.”

“There is no doubt he deserves to be in the U.S. and will make it a better place,” Barry said.

Teresa Wagner, Nakwa’s lawyer at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, said Nakwa is one of about 10 of the agency’s clients who were denied residency status because they received military training by an terrorist group.

This is immigration, people. This is illegal immigration. These are the people who built this country - your ancestors and mine, unless you are a full-blooded Native American Indian.

Somebody get Lino Nakwa a driver's license and registered to vote ASAP. I want to see pictures of him at his polling place come November 8.