A Declaration for All of Us

(Jane Kamensky & John Bridgeland) - On July 4, 2025, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello hosted its 63rd annual immigration and naturalization ceremony, swearing in 74 new American citizens from 40 countries across five continents. Their stories remind us of the promise of the Declaration of Independence we celebrate in this 249th anniversary year.

Jefferson would have approved. The ability to leave one's country and join another was, he wrote in 1817, a "natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, … and the pursuit of happiness” he enumerated in the Declaration decades before.