Marty Levine
January 23, 2025
[1]My father was a wandering Aramean[i]
My mother was a wandering Byelorussian
I began my comments at a recent Chicago City Council meeting with these words.
My personal story had never seemed so relevant to the politics of the moment than it does right now. Wanderers like the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people who had fled a hostile environment seeking his “promised land” were until now quaint stories from a bible I consider an interesting piece of fiction. Wanderers like my mother who had, along with her mother, fled from their family home in a small village (Brezhin) outside of Minsk seeking to reunite with her father who had fled years before to avoid serving in the Tzar’s army, were seeking a better life, free from the pogroms of their homeland. Both Abraham and my family had felt the threats they were fleeing from prompting them to leave behind their families and their community.
I grew up with all of the benefits that these sacrifices provided. I was steeped in the melting pot this country was thought to be and came out as an American. I knew their old life only as stories told around our dinner table, mostly by my grandfather. I never thought much about what made me an American citizen; I just was.
When I turned 18 I registered with the local draft board, got my draft card, and thought nothing of it. When I was 21 I became a registered voter and proudly showed up on election day to make my voice heard. I never gave one thought to this being abnormal because my mother was not born in this country, and I knew nothing about if or when she had become a citizen.
The concept of “birthright citizenship” as conferred by the 14th amendment to the US Constitution was not something I remember thinking about as I went through life those decades ago. Nor was it discussed when I presented my birth certificate to the Selective Service office or to the New York City Election officials or to, years later, US Department of State when I applied for a US Passport. I never thought any of this was unusual or that I might require something more to validate my status in this country.
I never thought about it at all until Donald Trump amplified and empowered those who see themselves as protecting our country against an invasion of “others”– people who do not deserve to be in this country. And as I stood before the City Council asking them not to water down my city’s Welcoming City Ordinance, I was thinking about it a lot and it was much more personal than just a political exercise.
Just minutes after he took the oath of office and became, again, President of the United States Donald Trump signed an executive order that sought to operationalize his promise to end “birthright” citizenship
It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
I am not enough of a Constitutional law expert to speculate on whether he has the power to do this nor do I want to opine on how our courts might ultimately rule on the challenges that have already been filed to block his actions. All of that will roll out in the coming weeks and months.
What I do know is that I have reacted to this threat. It has caused me to think about, if I was challenged, could I document my parents’ status as citizens. And I don’t know that I easily could, nor can I guarantee what I would find if I searched through whatever archives are kept of citizenship processes in the beginning decades of the 20th century when hundreds of thousands of wanderers were arriving in this country and record keeping involved a world of pen and paper.
My mother died in 2019, as that first Trump term was ending. In weeks that followed, we sorted through the possessions she and my father and their parents had left behind. My brother and sister were able to find photographs from their hometown; we could see the dirt streets and wooden homes along the banks of a river that had been where they lived. We found in my Mom’s files copies of some documents relating to their travel to this country and to her life as a new arrival, including her high school diploma. But there was no document telling exactly how she had entered this country nor how and when she had become a US citizen.
I know even less about my father and his parents’ travels here and their naturalization if it occurred.
I have my birth certificate (baby boy Levine) but with the current desire to end birthright citizenship did that matter if my parents had lived their lives as “illegals?”
As a 78-year-old man, I know this sounds like something outrageous to be worried about. I’m probably overreacting. Donald Trump and his MAGA teammates are focused on people from south of the United States who are not “white” like me. They will never turn their gaze in my direction and want to go back so far in time as they start their new “golden age.”
But as I spoke to the City Council these were the thoughts that were rattling around my brain. While I was going to speak about good public policy, equity, humanity, or doing the right thing, I was thinking about me and my Mom. While I reminded them that this nation and this city had been important partners as we worked to resettle thousands of Soviet Jews who were fleeing, as my Mom had, from a hostile place, I could not feel the fear that somehow someone would decide I was not a citizen because they wanted to protect our nation from “others” who were not fully American.
The MAGA actions threaten people in ways I now understand much better. It is not about the rule of law or about who contributes to what in building this nation’s future. It is truly about who gets to be part of us and who gets cast as “the other”, as the not-us. And if it can happen to a Mexican or a Venezuelan or a Somalian today it can be me tomorrow. And this is what we cannot look away from. This is why the battle over immigration is about so important to continue to fight.
First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
[i] “My father was a wandering Aramean” is a phrase from the Bible, specifically Deuteronomy 26:5, which refers to the Jewish people’s ancestral connection to the region of Aram and their history of being nomadic and wandering before settling in the land of Israel; essentially signifying their past as displaced people before God brought them to their promised land.
