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DURHAM – Friday, 150 North Carolina residents became the nation's newest citizens.

Many of the men and women have waited years to become U.S. citizens.

“My journey started in 1996,” said Dr. Bobbili Williams after becoming a citizen. “I came to the U.S.A. I was a physician in India and I had a dream to come here.”

Williams now works at Fayetteville VA Medical Center.

Twenty-five of the new citizens are already risking their lives to protect our nation's freedom, freedom they didn't have until now.

“Back in Mexico, there was not a lot of opportunities, so as soon as I got here, it was just a completely different world,” said Pfc. Milagros Rodriguez, a Marine who just became a citizen. “[The U.S.] gave me so many opportunities. It gave me so many things I didn't have back home. So [joining the military] is one of the things I could do to basically say thank you.”

The new citizens say with a single certificate, their lives are forever changed.

“It feels a lot different,” Williams said. “It feels like it was a long way to come, but it was worth it.”

“It means I can say proudly I am a United States citizen, not just a resident,” said Rodriguez.

“It means freedom, security, love, and joy,” said Felicia Chica Harrison, a new U.S. citizen born in Nigeria. “At least you don't have problems again with immigration. Immigration doesn't come looking for you. You're done with them. You are a free person.”

In the two years the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Raleigh-Durham Field Office has been open, they have naturalized more than 12,000 new citizens.