Confined and Free : Citizenship Comes to Wheelchair-Bound Immigrant

Confined to living on life-support systems, a 59-year-old immigrant from Iran realized a dream Wednesday when federal officials came to his Glendale home to swear him in as a U.S. citizen.

“This was a wish that I had, and I did it,” Hratch Petrossian said, speaking with difficulty over the noise of his respirator. “I came here for the freedom. Some emigres, they come to have a better life. That’s not a crime. But for me, freedom is more important.”

Petrossian developed a degenerative nerve disease in 1981, one year after coming to the United States. The affliction kept him from seeing much of this country but not from becoming a citizen.

Petrossian, an Armenian, is confined to a wheelchair--paralyzed from the neck down. He is connected to a respirator that does the work that his atrophied diaphragm cannot.

But Petrossian’s mind works just fine, and he is a voracious reader who has long been fascinated with the American system of government, his wife and family said. He had applied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in vain for citizenship for more than two years. INS officials, unaware of his disability, had repeatedly told him he had to come into the INS office to take a citizenship exam.

After Petrossian’s doctor wrote to the INS that his patient could not leave his home, INS officials came to Petrossian’s apartment on Oct. 2 to administer the citizenship exam. With no formal preparation, Petrossian answered every question correctly.

Wednesday, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray came to Petrossian’s home to swear him in and present him with a certificate showing he had passed the citizenship exam.

With family members gathered around him, drinking champagne and sharing Armenian pastries and a cake decorated with the image of an American flag, Petrossian smiled and kissed his wife and said he couldn’t be happier.

“I have enjoyed every second of my life, because I believe that one has to be positive,” Petrossian said. “Nowadays, most of the people in the world live in totalitarian countries. They don’t have this opportunity. I want to be part of a multiparty democracy.”