This contrast has only become more stark as the new administration has ramped up deportations, rescinded thousands of visas, even attempted to stop green-card holders from countries like Syria and Yemen from entering the country. In the past few months, thousands of families have been torn apart. Millions more live in a state of terror.
Many of them face a trade-off that is much more pernicious than any I ever had to endure: They can protest the government at the risk of getting deported, or they can stay silent in the face of injustice aimed directly at them.
This month, the long-awaited day finally came. I put on a bright blue suit, a white shirt and a small black button with a quotation from the protest movement against the Vietnam War: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” As I drove to my citizenship ceremony at the John F. Kenedy Presidential Library, I thought about all the reasons I want to be an American.
Since I’ve come to the United States I’ve gotten a Ph.D. in political science. At first, I focused my research on more abstract questions, like the role of personal responsibility in the welfare state. But a few years ago — long before Britons voted to leave the European Union or Donald J. Trump announced that he was running for president — I started to worry that liberal democracy was under real threat in the United States and around the world.
In my studies, I showed that citizens now give less importance to living in a democracy than they once did, and that they are more open to authoritarian alternatives like military rule. So it did not come as a surprise when frustrated citizens from Britain to Hungary, and from the United States to India, began casting ballots for authoritarian populists who promised a radical break with the status quo.
There is plenty of democratic energy behind these movements. But because populists like President Trump value only the support of a narrow segment of citizens and claim an exclusive right to speak on behalf of “the people,” they are a real danger to the norms and institutions that are necessary to sustain democracy.
Like Mr. Trump, democratically elected dictators have often believed that they don’t owe political consideration to the minorities they vilify. And like Mr. Trump, they have often claimed that all those who challenge their rule — independent judges, critical journalists — are enemies of the people. For anybody who has studied how democracies die, the president’s dark rhetoric sounds familiar.
One of the things I most admire about the United States is its fierce attachment to the Constitution. Americans have as deep a commitment to democratic institutions, and as active a civil society, as the citizens of any other country in the world. If the defenders of democracy don’t make it here, it is doubtful that they will make it anywhere.
But one of the things I most fear about the United States is that the veneration of the Constitution is always in danger of turning into complacency. While the country’s system of checks and balances gives Americans the tools to safeguard their freedoms, the Constitution cannot defend itself. The defenses it puts in place will work only if citizens are prepared to use them.
As this realization dawned on many Americans in the past months, and a valiant fight for the soul of the country got underway, I felt increasingly self-conscious about my status as a “resident alien.” While I had plenty of opportunity to speak to Americans, I could not speak as an American. And that is why the election of a dangerous demagogue to the presidency of the United States made me more, not less, determined to take on citizenship. Now more than ever I want to be a fully paid-up member of this society — and fight for the survival of liberal democracy alongside my new compatriots.
The oath of citizenship moved me more than I had expected. For a moment, I choked up and found it difficult to get the words out. But then my voice took on a new resolve: proud and determined, I swore to “defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
After the ceremony, I did not go to a park with friends. I did not have any champagne. I did not try to get a cop to give me a ticket in celebration of my newfound freedom. Instead, I did something that millions of others cannot do without fear: I joined a protest in Boston against the revised executive order on immigration.
The couple of dozen people who had assembled on a clear, cold afternoon, holding signs like “No More Families Torn Apart” and “Immigrants Are America,” did not make for a very impressive crowd. The police barely paid us any attention. Nor did anybody else.
The moment felt no less meaningful to me. For the very first time, I was standing up to the unjust actions of my government. And for the very first time, I could say, as an American, that the executive order — and the larger worldview it represents — violates our values.
