I still remember my citizenship ceremony from 2011. There was a festive spirit among the dozens of us who were about to become the newest Americans, a kind of joy offset only by the anxiety of having to turn in our green cards first. For years, I jealously guarded that little card, which was not only not green but also something I was repeatedly told by authorities to carry with me at all times. They had to pry it from my fingers that day.
At my ceremony, which I wrote about at the time, a representative from the New York City commission on human rights explained to her captive American audience what civil rights protections we had, and the judge who swore us in as citizens encouraged us to exercise our vote, serve on juries, run for office and speak out for our rights. We were each given a pocket constitution. The whole thing was a celebration of democratic values. I entered downtown Brooklyn that day as a resident alien. I left as a newly minted American citizen, equal in the eyes of the law to every other American citizen.
Oh, how quaint that time seems now. Immigrants without all the proper documents are not the only ones the Trump administration has its sights on. Naturalized immigrants are at a greater risk than at any time in recent memory of losing their hard-won citizenship, as the whole idea of citizenship gets put through Trump’s anti-immigration wringer. The Trump administration has been aggressively rattling the saber of denaturalization, a political tactic that incidentally is explored in Project 2025.
Misty Roberts, a former mayor in Louisiana, has been sentenced to 90 days for raping a 16-year-old boy.
A California philosophy lecturer accused of assaulting federal agents after removing a tear gas canister agents had thrown into a crowd of people protesting an immigration raid was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday.
Omar Artan, a referee from Somalia, received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Mogadishu after being denied entry to the United States for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The homecoming saw crowds of supporters gather to celebrate Artan and show their solidarity following hs controversial exclusion from the tournament.
The brief exchange of fire between Iran and Israel was a truer statement of the balance of power that now exists between these two countries than the many spurious claims by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about having “smashed”, “destroyed” or “obliterated” the armed forces of the Islamic Republic.
In the southern Lebanese village of Habboush, the sound that cut through the stillness of the night was not an air strike. It was the sound of a child screaming for help.
Russian investigative media outlet The Insider confirmed that the victim of a car bombing on Tuesday was Damir Davydov, a Russian military official responsible for supplying missile and artillery ammunition to the front.
A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) finds hard-right groups have increasingly expanded their influence across the US government, which is pursuing a federal fraud case into the civil rights organization.
A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing a man with nitrogen gas after declaring the method violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama became the first state in the nation to use the execution method in January 2024, but has faced repeated legal challenges to its use.
