A Federal Judge Has a Message for Naturalized Citizens (and Trump)

Three times a year, Judge Sarah Evans Barker, a federal district judge for the Southern District of Indiana, oversees the swearing in of new citizens. Barker, like most judges, relishes these proceedings, since they’re ordinarily such festive occasions. “You feel the pressure to rise to the level of excitement,” she told me. By choice, Judge Barker handles the naturalization ceremony that falls around the Fourth of July. It’s an elaborate affair, held on the lawn of President Benjamin Harrison’s home, under a tent. There’s live music, and Barker hands out boxes of sparklers to the new Americans. This year, she was also scheduled to conduct the ceremony held nine days after the election, and she worried that what joy people felt would be tempered by fear. “I was concerned about what to say to people who had been buffeted about by the harsh rhetoric,” she told me, “and I wanted to do what I could to soothe their concerns.”

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