Former President George W. Bush is due to call immigration “a blessing and a strength” during a naturalization ceremony for new U.S. citizens on Monday.

“Generations of new arrivals [have] left their mark on our national character, in traits that friends abroad still recognize as distinctly American: our optimism, our independence and openness to the new, our willingness to strive and to risk, our sense of life as an adventure, dignified by personal freedom and personal responsibility.