Trump’s Immigration Shift Alarms Naturalized American Citizens/ Newslooks/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ Morning Edition/ Naturalized U.S. citizens are increasingly fearful amid sweeping immigration changes under President Trump. Many now question whether citizenship still guarantees safety and stability. Recent enforcement actions and rhetoric are reviving historic anxieties about who truly “belongs” in America.
Naturalized Citizen Fears Quick Looks
- Naturalized citizens express anxiety over Trump’s harsh immigration and enforcement policies.
- Many fear travel abroad or domestic movement could lead to detainment or scrutiny.
- DOJ’s push to denaturalize individuals sparks fear, even among long-time citizens.
- Personal stories, like Dauda Sesay’s, reveal shaken faith in America’s citizenship promise.
- Fear grows following Trump’s threats to revoke citizenship of political critics.
- Historical parallels show how citizenship definitions have shifted with politics.
- Scholars note American citizenship has never been consistently defined in law.
- Civil rights advocates warn of a growing climate of mistrust and exclusion.
Deep Look
Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Leaves Naturalized Citizens Feeling Unwelcome and Vulnerable
NEW YORK — When Dauda Sesay fled civil war in Sierra Leone and spent nearly a decade in a refugee camp, becoming a U.S. citizen seemed like the ultimate safeguard — a promise of belonging, protection, and opportunity. After arriving in Louisiana over 15 years ago, he was told that if he stayed out of trouble and followed the rules, he could one day take the oath and become an American.
And so he did.
“When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I did believe that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sesay, now 44 and an advocate for refugee integration in the United States. “It was a commitment — from me to the country, and from the country to me.”
But that belief has been deeply shaken in recent months, as President Donald Trump’s administration rolls out increasingly aggressive immigration policies. These include mass deportation campaigns, rhetoric against birthright citizenship, and expanded powers to revoke naturalized status. The cumulative effect: a wave of anxiety even among those who once believed their American citizenship was ironclad.
A Rising Fear Among the Naturalized
Sesay and many others like him now live with an uneasy question: What if their citizenship isn’t enough?
For some, fear has led to tangible changes in daily behavior. Naturalized citizens say they avoid international travel for fear they may be denied reentry or subjected to interrogations at the border. Even travel within the U.S. comes with unease. Stories of citizens detained by immigration agents — even when presenting birth certificates or passports — have circulated widely, heightening tensions.
Sesay now carries his passport at all times, even for domestic travel, despite holding a REAL ID, which meets federal identity standards.
“I just don’t want to take chances,” he said.
Immigration enforcement raids, some carried out by agents in unmarked gear, have swept up U.S. citizens in cities like Chicago and New York. At least one citizen detained in such a raid has filed a lawsuit. Others remain silent out of fear of retaliation.
DOJ Targets Naturalization
In a particularly alarming development for many, the Department of Justice this summer issued a directive to expand efforts to denaturalize citizens — stripping them of citizenship if they are found to have committed certain crimes or are deemed national security risks.
This echoes Trump’s earlier public threat against New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a naturalized citizen and democratic socialist, whose status Trump questioned after Mamdani criticized federal policy.
While such revocations are legally rare and typically follow strict legal standards, the idea that citizenship could be taken away at the president’s discretion has shaken many.
Requests for comment from various immigrant organizations were met with silence — a sign of just how hesitant naturalized citizens have become to speak out.
Historical Echoes
The fear many now feel has deep roots in U.S. history, where citizenship has often been inconsistently defined and arbitrarily granted — or taken away.
Stephen Kantrowitz, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes that while the word “citizen” appears in the U.S. Constitution, it was never clearly defined.
“When the Constitution is written, nobody knows what citizenship means,” Kantrowitz said. “It’s an idea. But how it’s implemented? That’s always been political.”
Early naturalization laws in 1790 restricted citizenship to “free white persons.” African descent was added only after the Civil War. Meanwhile, discriminatory immigration laws like the 1924 Immigration Act barred people from Asia based on their ineligibility for naturalization.
In some cases, courts even retroactively stripped individuals of citizenship. In the 1923 U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind ruling, the Supreme Court decided that Indians did not qualify as “white,” leading to the denaturalization of dozens.
Even during World War II, American citizens of Japanese descent were forcibly detained in internment camps without due process — another dark chapter where citizenship failed to provide true protection.
Today’s America: A Return to Uncertainty?
For Sesay, watching Trump’s America unfold has felt like a betrayal.
“The United States of America — that’s what I took that oath of allegiance, that’s what I made a commitment to,” he said. “Now, inside my home country, and I’m seeing a shift. … Honestly, that is not the America I believed in when I put my hand over my heart.”
Others, like New Mexico State Senator Cindy Nava, say they’ve seen the shift firsthand. Nava, who once lived undocumented before gaining citizenship through marriage, said even longtime citizens are expressing fear.
“I had never seen those folks be afraid,” Nava said. “Now, the folks that I know that were not afraid before — now they are uncertain of what their status holds.”
Advocates argue that the growing emphasis on suspicion, surveillance, and exclusion undermines the values that naturalization was meant to protect: inclusion, stability, and a sense of national identity.
Kantrowitz warned that political power often redefines citizenship to serve shifting agendas.
“Political power will sometimes simply decide that a group of people, or a person or a family isn’t entitled to citizenship,” he said. “We’ve seen it before.”
With calls to end birthright citizenship and expand deportation programs, naturalized Americans like Sesay find themselves wondering whether the promise they embraced is being rewritten.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “You work hard, follow the rules, raise your family, contribute to society — and yet, you’re made to feel like you don’t belong. That’s not the America I came here to be part of.”
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