Naturalized Citizens Are Scared

Summary

On a bookshelf near my desk, I still have the souvenir United States flag that I received during my naturalization ceremony, in 1994. I remember a tenderhearted judge got emotional as the room full of immigrants swore the Oath of Allegiance and that, afterward, my family took me to Burgerville to celebrate. The next morning, my teacher asked me to explain to my classmates—all natural-born Americans—how I felt about becoming a citizen at age 13.One girl had a question: “So Chris can never be president?”I wasn’t worried about becoming president—I just wanted to get to the computer lab, where we were free to slaughter squirrels in The Oregon Trail. But her question revealed that even kids know there are two kinds of citizens: the ones who are born here, and the ones like me. The distinction is written into the Constitution, a one-line fissure that Donald Trump used to crack open the country: “Now we have to look at it,” Trump said, after compelling Barack Obama to release his birth certificate in 2011. “Is it real? Is it proper?”Nearly 25 million naturalized citizens live in the U.S., and we are accustomed to extra scrutiny. I expect supplemental questions on medical forms, close inspection at border crossings, and bureaucratic requests to see my naturalization certificate. But I had never doubted that my U.S. citizenship was permanent, and that I was guaranteed the same rights of speech, assembly, and due process as natural-born Americans. Now I’m not so sure.Last month, the Department of Justice released a civil-enforcement memo listing the denaturalization of U.S. citizens as a top-five priority and pledging to “maximally pursue” all viable cases, including people who are “a potential danger to national security” and, more vague, anyone “sufficiently important to pursue.” President Trump has suggested that targets could include citizens whom he views as his political enemies, such as Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate who was born in Uganda and natu...