ST. LOUIS — Tears filled Hoa Le’s eyes as she held a tiny American flag in one hand and a framed picture of her late husband in the other.

After nearly five decades here as a refugee of the Vietnam War, Le finally became a U.S. citizen Thursday in a special ceremony inside the St. Louis Art Museum.

It fulfilled a promise to her adult daughters, who had long urged their parents to take that final step in making America home.

“I’m very happy,” Le, 75, said, through a translation by her daughters.

“Today is the happiest day,” said Hoa Le, of St. John, an immigrant from Vietnam, who holds onto a portrait of her husband, Hoang Nguyen, as she waits for her name to be called to receive her certification of citizenship on Thursday, April 3, 2025, during a naturalization ceremony at the St. Louis Art Museum. Le’s husband died last year.

Le was one of 39 people from 26 countries who became U.S. citizens on Thursday. For some, the ceremony brought a sense of safety in a time of uncertainty and fear caused by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

“There have been a lot of sleepless nights,” Dwight St. Louis, 40, said after he became a citizen Thursday.

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St. Louis, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2005 with his family and had permanent legal residency, said he had long held on to his Dominican citizenship as “part of my identity,” he said in an interview. That changed when he realized last fall that Trump would become president.

“He campaigned on anti-immigration and deporting people, even people who are here legally,” said St. Louis, an opera singer who moved here from Columbus, Ohio last year. “I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Since taking office, Trump has revoked legal status for some asylum seekers and visa holders, ramped up immigration enforcement at the southern border, and detained international students for activism. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have conducted deportation raids, sent people to detention centers in the U.S. and abroad, and deported them altogether before a federal judge has had a chance to weigh in on their case and possibly halt the actions.

During the ceremony, however, there was no mention of the crackdown. Some people taking the oath of citizenship wore red, white and blue or held American flags. Fathers, mothers, young kids and grandparents beamed as they watched their loved ones walk up one by one to accept forms recognizing their new citizenship.

U.S. Judge Catherine Perry, who presided over the ceremony, invoked ideas of equality, opportunity and liberty granted to U.S. citizens and urged the country’s newest citizens to contribute their native cultures and heritages to the diverse tapestry of American life. She said she kept her great-grandfather’s naturalization form framed in her office and hoped the new citizens’ own great-grandkids might one day do the same.

Dozens of new U.S. citizens are naturalized each week in the St. Louis federal courts, but a handful of the ceremonies are held elsewhere at local landmarks like the art museum. Director Min Jung Kim, who immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea in the early 2000s, told the audience the museum holds many pieces of art from immigrants from around the world, adding to America’s cultural life.

“Like you, I am an American by choice,” Jung Kim said.

Legal immigrants to the U.S. are required to reside here for five years before they can apply for citizenship, among a long list of other requirements under a strict vetting process that can take months to years depending on where an applicant hails from and how they initially came to the U.S.

Sravani Street, 33, she and her husband, an American citizen, had printed “stacks on stacks of paperwork” to get citizenship since starting the process upon moving to the area in 2020.

Street and her husband, Heath, met in her native India, where they lived for several years, but wanted to establish a life here together. They plan to travel across the country, and left Thursday’s ceremony for an appointment to get Sravani a U.S. passport.

“I’ve fallen in love with this country,” she said. “And now I can say I really belong here.”

Kristina Le, whose mother Hoa became a citizen Thursday, said her parents had put off citizenship for years because they spoke little English and distrusted government because of persecution they had faced in Vietnam. Her father, Hoang Nguyen, had fought for the South Vietnamese army alongside the U.S., and the family fled Vietnam by boat after the North Vietnamese captured Saigon and won the war.

The couple sacrificed for decades to build a better life for their daughters, said Le, who is president of the St. Louis Vietnamese Community Association.

“This is our country, this is our home,” she said.

Photos and video: St. Louis area welcomes 39 new U.S. citizens from 26 countries in naturalization ceremony at St. Louis Art Museum

“This makes the sacrifices my family made worthwhile,” said Mercedes Sifontes, an immigrant from Venezuela, who cries after taking the oath of citizenship on Thursday, April 3, 2025, during a naturalization ceremony at the St. Louis Art Museum.