What makes someone an American?
It is a question that has been asked, weaponized and redefined in every generation. And right now, President Donald Trump has decided that he alone should provide the definition.
So far this year, he has attempted to revoke the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, deport immigrants with green cards and temporary protected status who have lived here for decades and impose ideological requirements for certain people to stay in the country.
The question of who should be an American citizen has been debated since the country was founded. And while there have been times when the answer has been more restrictive, the arc of history has bent toward a more expansive view, from the Reconstruction Amendments after the Civil War to the landmark immigration reform of the 1960s.
The Founding Fathers were preoccupied with what kind of people this new nation would call its own.
The Founding Fathers, for all their flaws and contradictions, were preoccupied with what kind of people this new nation would call its own.
You can see it throughout the Federalist Papers, the series of anonymous essays written to argue for the ratification of the Constitution. In Federalist No. 1, Alexander Hamilton argued that the Constitution would test whether society could establish a government “from reflection and choice” instead of bloodline. In No. 2, John Jay wrote that Americans were “knit together” by “the same national government, conducting their common concerns.” And in No. 10, James Madison argued that the Constitution would help the country manage the affairs of a diverse society.
From the beginning, then, American identity was meant to rest not on racial or ancestral ties, but on faith in a common political experiment. Two centuries later, we are watching an American president insult immigrants on a near-daily basis and call for stripping naturalized citizens of their status. Over the weekend, he even floated the blatantly unconstitutional idea of stripping New York-born Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship because of her criticism of him.
Trump would like us to believe that he is defending the nation’s heritage, but his attempts to weaponize citizenship against critics tell a different story. This is not about ancestry; it’s about allegiance — to him.
This is especially dangerous in a moment when immigration is not being treated as a policy challenge but as a political target. Trump and his allies have revived language of “invasion,” redirected military resources toward domestic immigration raids, and even proposed mass deportations of people with deep roots in their communities. There’s a direct line between that kind of rhetoric and the broader effort to delegitimize citizenship itself.
That vision has now moved beyond the fringe and into the heart of Republican leadership. In a speech at the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, Vice President JD Vance endorsed a hierarchy of citizenship, implying that those with longer ancestral ties to the country are more authentically American.
But that idea stands in direct opposition to the founding promise of this nation, which is why we must say out loud what history has already proven: The people crossing our borders today — fleeing violence, seeking opportunity, working for a better life for their families — are living out the very promise this country was built on. They are showing us what belief in America looks like.
We’ve seen this fight before. In the 19th century, Irish and Italian immigrants were told they’d never be real Americans. In the 20th century, African Americans were beaten and jailed for demanding the rights they were born with. Every time this country has tried to expand the definition of “we the people,” there has been backlash. But every time, hope and the belief in a broader, more inclusive America has marched ahead anyway. Our history is filled with people who refused to let anyone else define their Americanness. So yes, we should take these attacks on citizenship seriously and aggressively challenge them. We should also remember our history is filled with people who refused to let anyone else define their Americanness. From Frederick Douglass to Shirley Chisholm to the immigrants fighting in courtrooms today, the American story is one of people forcing this country to live up to its ideals. What makes someone an American? It’s not who they are, but what they believe. Do they believe in democracy? In equal protection under the law? In the idea that power should be earned, not inherited? If so, whether they’re born in Brooklyn, Port-au-Prince or Caracas, they belong. There is power in saying that. There is hope in remembering that. And there is danger in forgetting it. For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weeknight” every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
Symone D. Sanders Townsend is an author and a co-host of "The Weeknight." 
