Senate Votes to Ease Law Briefly for July 3 Citizenship Ritual
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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday passed by voice vote a bill to briefly relax immigration laws so immigrants from all over the nation can be naturalized July 3 on Ellis Island.
The measure, approved earlier this week by the House, now goes to the White House for President Reagan’s signature.
The bill would suspend for 48 hours a provision in the law that would otherwise limit the ceremony on Ellis Island to residents of New York.
The citizenship ceremony, to be conducted by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, is scheduled as part of the Fourth of July weekend festivities marking the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island centennial.
Under current law, immigrants must be naturalized in the federal court district where they live. But under the bill, governors from each U.S. state and territory would select two people from their areas to take the oath of citizenship in the Burger ceremony.
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