New York — When Dawuda Sisay first came to the United States after escaping civil war in Sierra Leone and spending nearly a decade in a refugee camp, Dawuda Sisay had no idea he could become a citizen. But he was told that if he followed the rules and stayed out of trouble, he could advance after a few years. As a US citizen, he will have protection.
That’s what made him decide to apply: the premise — and the promise — that when he became a naturalized American citizen, it would create a bond between him and his new home. He would have rights as well as responsibilities, such as voting, and since he was obligated to the country, the country was obligated to him.
“When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I believed in that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sisay, 44, who first arrived in Louisiana more than 15 years ago and now works as an advocate for refugees and their integration into American society.
But in recent months, as President Donald Trump reshapes immigration and the country’s relationship with immigrants, that belief has been shaken for Sisay and other naturalized citizens. There is now a fear that the pressure to dramatically increase deportations and change who can claim America as their home, through things like Trying to end birthright citizenshipIt has a double effect.
What they thought was a solid foundation for naturalization protections is now like quicksand.
Some worry that if they leave the country, they will face difficulties when they try to return, and are intimidated by accounts of naturalized citizens being questioned or detained by US border agents. They wonder: Do they need to? Lock their phones To protect their privacy? Others are reluctant to move within the country, after stories like that of a US citizen accused of being here illegally and detained even after he was detained. His mother produced his birth certificate.
Sesay said he no longer travels domestically without his passport, despite having a Real ID with strict ID requirements imposed by the federal government.
Immigration enforcement sweeps are often conducted by masked and unidentified federal agents in places including chicago and New York Citysometimes they included American citizens in their nets. A US citizen says he was arrested by immigration agents twice A federal lawsuit was filed.
Adding to concerns, the Justice Department issued a memo this summer Saying that he will intensify efforts To strip immigrants of their citizenship who have committed crimes or are deemed to pose a threat to national security. Sometime over the summer, Trump Citizenship threatened Zahran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor of New York City, obtained citizenship as a young adult.
The atmosphere makes some people feel anxious about talking about it publicly, for fear of drawing negative attention to themselves. Requests for comment through multiple community organizations and other contacts found no applicants willing to sign up other than Sisay.
In New Mexico, state Sen. Cindy Nava says she’s familiar with the fear, because she grew up undocumented before getting DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that protected people brought to the United States as children from deportation — and obtaining citizenship through her marriage. But she did not expect to see this much fear among naturalized citizens.
“I had never seen these people afraid,” Nava said. “Now people that I know who were not afraid before are now unsure of what their situation holds in terms of their safety net.”
What citizenship means, and who is included, has expanded and contracted over the course of American history, said Steven Kantrowitz, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said that although the word “citizen” is present in the original constitution, it is not defined.
“When the constitution is written, no one knows what citizenship means,” he said. “It’s a term of art, and it comes from the French revolutionary tradition. It kind of suggests equality between members of a political community, and it has some implications for the right to be a member of that political community. But it’s… not at all specific.”
The first naturalization law passed by the new nation’s Congress in 1790 stipulated that citizenship was for any “free white person” of good character. People of African descent or those born in Africa were added as a specific category to federal immigration law after the ravages of the Civil War in the 19th century, and that was also when the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution to establish birthright citizenship.
In the last years of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, laws were put in place limiting immigration, and thus naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1924 effectively banned people from Asia because they were not eligible for citizenship, being neither white nor black. This did not change until 1952, when the Immigration Act removed racial restrictions on who could be naturalized. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 replaced the previous immigration system with one that divided visas equally between countries.
American history also includes times when citizenship was revoked from those who held it, as occurred after the 1923 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. This ruling stated that Indians could not be naturalized because they were ineligible for white citizenship, leading to dozens of revocations of citizenship. Other times, it was ignored, as in World War II, when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps.
“Sometimes, political authority simply decides that a group of people, a person or a family, is not entitled to citizenship,” Kantrowitz said.
It feels like betrayal at this moment, says Sisay.
“The United States of America – this is what I swore an oath of allegiance to, and this is what I am committed to,” Sisay said. “Now, within my own country, I see a shift…. Frankly, this is not the America I believe in when I put my hand on my heart.”