New citizens recognized in Elgin ceremony
More than 100 people became United States citizens in the last year with help from Centro de Informacion and Elgin Community College. They moved from countries all over the world including Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, El Salvador, Ecuador, Poland, Turkey, Honduras, Nicaragua, Iraq, Ghana, The Philippines, Laos, the Czech Republic and Ecuador.
ECC President David Sam served as the master of ceremonies during Elgin’s annual New Citizenship Recognition Committee celebration Wednesday, held at the beginning of the Elgin City Council meeting. Dozens of the new citizens received certificates and congratulations from council and members of the community.
Gazmend Alitovski, 38, came to Elgin from Macedonia in 1989 with a tourist visa, planning to visit his cousins and go home. When war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Alitovski said it was too dangerous to go back.
It wasn’t until about 20 years after he first arrived that Alitovski became a citizen — but not for lack of trying.
“We tried to become citizens since the day we came here,” he said. “We tried to do the paperwork, but there were complications.”
After the Elgin man connected with Centro de Informacion, the road got easier. He passed his citizenship test a little more than a year ago but participated in the Elgin ceremony Wednesday, stopping to celebrate the milestone publicly for the first time.