Orioles Hall of Famer Melvin Mora becomes U.S. citizen in Baltimore

Former Baltimore Orioles third baseman Melvin Mora was among 60 candidates representing 31 countries who became U.S. citizens on Monday afternoon at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Baltimore Field Office.

Mora, a two-time All-Star with the Orioles who was inducted into the franchise’s Hall of Fame two years ago, spent 10 of his 13 big league seasons with Baltimore, hitting .280/.355/.438 with them from 2000 to 2009.

The Venezuela native came to the United States as a teenager to pursue his big league dreams, and he established residency in the U.S. at the time of the birth of his quintuplets 16 years ago. Now, he has U.S.-Venezuelan dual citizenship.

“I feel more relaxed,” Mora said. “I finally did it. This is very special for me and my family. I was so nervous going through this. I was kind of like, ‘What am I doing?’ I’m in the Orioles Hall of Fame and now I’m shaking. It’s something different, so I didn’t expect that, especially when you see (people from) 30-some countries doing the same thing. It’s pretty nice.”

On most days, the USCIS Baltimore Field Office holds two naturalization ceremonies, and last year nearly 20,000 people became U.S. citizens in Maryland through the field office. This year, about 10,000 have been naturalized.

During the ceremony, three of Mora’s children led the group of new citizens in the pledge of allegiance. As Mora watched, he fought back tears. Mora credited his children with helping him learn the U.S. history necessary to become a citizen, peppering him with questions during the process.

Mora still lives in Harford County but is still active in his native Venezuela. He has run a school there for the past 17 years in his hometown of Valencia that teaches 200 kids and also runs a baseball academy there that just produced its first two professional signings in its fifth year of existence.

“The hardest part was that because he is so prideful of his homeland,” Mora’s wife Gisel said. “He loves his homeland. To him, it was almost like parting with that. And it was teaching him that it’s not parting, it’s merging the two together and both histories.”

All five of Mora’s quintuplets also hold dual citizenship. Mora petitioned for them to receive Venezuelan citizenship about four years ago.