www.silverguide.site –

In June, Yesica McKeone officially became a US citizen. At the naturalization ceremony, she raised a hand and took the oath of allegiance to a country on the verge of its 250th anniversary. Thousands of new citizens recited the oath alongside her. Some cried softly.

“I’m finally here,” McKeone, 32, remembered thinking about her citizenship journey. At two years old, she left Michoacán, Mexico, with her family and settled in California, where she became a permanent resident. Now, home is a pastoral patch of land in Solvang, in the heart of California’s central coast.

For the mother of two young children, becoming a naturalized US citizen closed a long chapter of uncertainty. But at the ceremony, the swell of pride was tempered with sobering memories of federal immigration arrests in her surrounding neighborhood.

As a new citizen, McKeone feels more legally protected but also conflicted. Her sense of true belonging feels tenuous in a country with narrowing pathways to immigration and citizenship.

“You see around you people constantly being pushed out,” said McKeone. “It’s just weird times.”

As the US marks 250 years of independence, many new citizens report simultaneously feeling pride and unease about becoming American.

As the Trump administration seeks to limit who can reside in the country – and ultimately become American – the naturalization process has become more burdensome with longer waits, tougher citizenship testing standards and high filing fees. The barriers and the continued aggressive immigration crackdown raise a question for people eligible for naturalization: are they still welcome here?

At the same time, for many new citizens, taking the naturalization oath carries a sense of relief amid increasing uncertainty.

“It’s survival,” said Dahni Tsuboi, chief executive officer of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSocal), a Los Angeles-based non-profit that provides citizenship application workshops, advocacy and legal services.

The cost of becoming American

On 4 July, historical sites, including Mount Vernon, George Washington’s former residence in Virginia, will host naturalization ceremonies as part of the nationwide America 250 celebration. The symbolism is fitting: the country’s founders were also individuals who chose to build a new sense of peoplehood after leaving their country of origin, said Tsuboi.

“Every time somebody becomes a naturalized citizen, they are re-enacting that founding moment,” she added. “It’s very American.”

That ideal has long existed alongside fierce debate over who gets to be American. The first naturalization law, passed in 1790, limited citizenship to “free white persons”. In an 1858 speech in Chicago, Abraham Lincoln said anyone who believed in the Declaration of Independence’s principle that “all men are created equal” was an American.

In the 1920s, Congress began building a restrictive quota system that narrowed immigration from much of the world. The 1965 Hart-Celler Act dismantled those national-origins quotas, opening the door to more diverse immigration.

But compared with other countries, such as Qatar and Kuwait, which make citizenship nearly unattainable for immigrants, the United States overall has an accessible naturalization process, said Irene Bloemraad, a political science and sociology professor at the University of British Columbia.

“The United States is remarkable in saying: ‘Come here. Spend some time here. Learn a little bit about us, and then you can become one of us,’” added Bloemraad. “You can become a citizen.”

As the US enters its 250th year, it is again confronting old questions, said Rogers M Smith, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

The nation’s 250th celebrations are unfolding against a national backdrop of aggressive immigration enforcement and dramatic changes to immigration policy: the Trump administration has challenged birthright citizenship, radically restricted legal immigration and brought on a a renewed focus on denaturalization.

Community groups that help immigrants navigate the naturalization process say the political climate is shaping whether eligible immigrants feel safe enough to take the steps to become citizens. At AJSocal, some people who sought legal consultation have since chosen not to move forward with the naturalization process, said Tsuboi. They cite fear, cost and other barriers amid a broader wave of immigration arrests – even of permanent residents and citizens.

That fear is colliding with a naturalization process that has also grown more demanding. Since last October, applicants have faced a tougher civics test. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security proposed steep increases for citizenship application fees.

If approved, the proposal would end fee waivers and raise the application cost to $1,280 online or $1,330 on paper.

“Here we are celebrating our democracy while at the same time proposing a formal act that would make joining our democracy financially inaccessible for the most vulnerable people,” said Tsuboi.

Who gets to belong?

For some, the benefits of citizenship outweigh the cost and uncertainty. In June, Kwan “Dawn” Tang took the naturalization oath after almost a decade of living and working in the US as both a student and a permanent resident.

For Tang, 32, who was born in Hong Kong, the everyday friction of permanent residency pushed him to start the citizenship process. Traveling home to San Francisco frequently meant extra screenings at airports. It didn’t sit well, said Tang. Homecomings should be freeing, not fraught. He also didn’t have a voice in elections.

Last month, after six months of waiting from application to oath, Tang became a citizen. It was everything he wanted – to be free and to call himself an American. Then, the double-consciousness followed. He became a citizen at a moment when faith in the United States as a destination for immigrants is fading.

“At some point, I just wanted to get it over with and leave,” said Tang about the naturalization ceremony. “I just wanted to go back and be in my little shell.”

Americans are living in a period now that is more like the restrictive period of the 1920s than at any time since, said Smith. Still, he said, recent immigration restrictions have largely come through executive action, not Congress, and may not reflect a broader national consensus.

“We are a country that right now is sending signals that Americans are putting America first,” said Smith. “And not being as welcoming as in the past.”

That disconnect is part of a broader uncertainty about what the country is becoming as it marks its 250th anniversary. More Americans say the US founders would be disappointed in the country’s current trajectory. Amid the dismay, citizenship ceremonies still hold up an enduring idea of the country: that becoming a naturalized citizen is a choice people fight to make.

For the Fourth of July, on the nation’s semiquincentennial, both McKeone and Tang plan to celebrate their citizenship milestones. Tang is planning a citizen-themed party in a park – cheekily dubbed “Dawn of a New Citizen” as a play on his nickname. There will be stars-and-stripes party decor, and Tang plans to host a trivia game using the civics test questions he had to master to take the oath.

Let’s see how much his friends know about the US, Tang said with a laugh.