The Uphill Climb to American Citizenship

By Mindy Belz

Thursday, September 17, 2026

 

For Chebwa Mutombo, the journey to find a new place to call home has been 22 years long. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 49-year-old mother of three stood on the grassy West Lawn of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, ground once leveled by the hands of African slaves. She raised her own right hand, and under the baking sun of the Fourth of July, swore allegiance to the United States of America.

 

Chebwa’s husband, Joseph, who is 56 and confined to a wheelchair, stayed seated but raised his hand to recite the oath, led by senior U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski.

 

The two wore matching ensembles made by Chebwa, a seamstress, of super wax cotton, a specially dyed Congolese print recalling their roots. Pinned to them were bronze medal brooches with red, white, and blue ribbon given to each of the new citizens, distinctive badges for family, friends, and dignitaries seated in the audience. They included federal and state officials, and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who spoke at the naturalization ceremony. Joseph sported an American flag tie, more evidence of the couple’s fresh start.

 

Public gatherings to celebrate immigrants coming to America are in short supply just now. Yet the Mutombos were among 75 immigrants from 36 countries raising their hands to take the final step of the marathon process that is becoming a U.S. citizen. They completed a process now endangered, as naturalization—even for those who meet the qualifications—has become more complex, more expensive, and more likely to end in failure.

 

Everyone born in America should sometime in their lives watch foreign-born citizens swear allegiance to the United States, to defend its Constitution, to bear arms on its behalf if required by law, and to renounce and abjure all others. It’s like a betrothal, intimate and moving, a choice rather than a birthright. It’s a moment so singular that a nation once formed of immigrants still brings the nations in its train with each newcomer who takes the oath.

 

On July 4, the citizens-to-be rose before dawn to make their way up Jefferson’s mountain. A fife and drum corps awaited their arrival, just as it has done since the Virginia home of the third president, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, began hosting annual Independence Day naturalization ceremonies in 1963. They took their oaths of allegiance before a sellout crowd of about 4,000, who filled rows of seats under a tent despite a suffocating heat wave.

 

Each of them has a story. The Mutombos arrived from Africa as refugees invited by the U.S. government seven years ago. Before that, they spent 15 years living in a camp in Zambia, having crossed the border from their war-wrecked home in Lubumbashi, the Congo’s second-largest city.

 

Nineteen-year-old Omar Basel Bouz Alassal, standing in his gray suit and tie, fled Syria with his family at age 4, all “looking for safety and a better future,” he said.

 

Debee Arvind Bouch came from India’s Tamil Nadu state as a teenager with her family for religious reasons, her father sponsored by a church in nearby Charlottesville. She married an American who runs a local locksmith business and works in the ticket office at Monticello. Her name drew boisterous applause when she received her citizenship certificate. Bouch—like Pei-Che from Taiwan and Frank from Switzerland, whose American spouses were also in attendance—shows that many roads to citizenship begin with love.

 

Each of the new Americans filed paperwork with embassies, passed interviews and vetting, paid fees and hired lawyers, passed a challenging civics test, and waited to be invited to the ceremony.

 

Two hours away, at the home of George Washington, another 150 immigrants from 50 different countries took their oaths of citizenship at Mount Vernon. These two presidential centers, the nation’s oldest, are part of a widening effort to boost appreciation for immigrants and their road to citizenship. This year, 21 presidential libraries and museums will host 40 naturalization ceremonies across the country. The ceremonies began in February at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and will conclude in November at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

 

The planning is largely the work of John Bridgeland, the founder and CEO of More Perfect, a civics-minded nonprofit he describes as “worried about our democracy.” Bridgeland, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President George W. Bush, is drawing on years of experience connecting public and private partners, this time around the country’s 250^th birthday. Working with the National Archives, the presidential centers, and immigration groups—plus living past presidents, first ladies, and historians—Bridgeland hopes to give a wider platform to democratic values and the role of immigration through U.S. history.

 

“We think welcoming strangers is something that divides us, when welcoming is something that brings all of us together,” Bridgeland said.

 

The push to showcase immigrants becoming Americans comes while the Trump administration has focused public attention on illegal immigration. But its enforcement operations and executive orders are obstructing legal immigration too—shutting down pathways that lead to days like the one at Monticello. Policy changes along with bureaucratic holdups are making it harder for many to finalize their citizenship status just as it’s within reach.

 

Latest figures show a 74 percent drop in the number of naturalization applications completed by the U.S. government this year. That’s according to an analysis of available data through July 31 from the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and includes both approved and denied cases.

 

Other data points are equally drastic. While the number of submitted immigration forms of all types is down by nearly half (48 percent) from one year ago, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) completed only about half of those—so, just 20,674 naturalization cases completed in July 2026 compared to 80,077 one year prior. Meanwhile, denials of completed naturalization applications have doubled.

 

Trump officials say the slowdown is a needed adjustment as they put in place more guardrails. Those include lengthy interviews, home searches, background checks of social media and community activism. Critics say that approach defines who gets to be a citizen in discriminatory ways that go beyond laws on naturalization, many of them as old as the country. With some changes, even those who qualify will increasingly find themselves blocked from naturalization, a lengthy procedure that takes up nine chapters in the USCIS policy manual.

 

Among the changes are rising application fees that make the cost of becoming a citizen prohibitive for many low-income families. The Trump administration also halted most applications for lawful permanent residency, or green cards, an essential step to naturalization. It banned in January all visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries designated “high risk,” a sweeping suspension that was vacated by a U.S. district court judge on August 21 but will take months and years to rectify. That will delay the path to citizenship for spouses, parents, and children of U.S. citizens, plus workers from the banned countries denied employer-based visas. At the same time, refugee resettlement to the U.S., once a reliable pathway to citizenship, is being zeroed out.

 

Some of the latest executive changes promise more lasting disruption. In a May 22 policy memo, USCIS announced it would end the longstanding practice of allowing lawful noncitizens to “adjust status” within the United States. Instead, applicants in some cases must return to their countries of origin to apply and wait months or years for processing. Many are spouses, parents, or adult children of U.S. citizens—potentially affecting people like Debee Arvind Bouch at Monticello.

 

Immigration groups say, if fully implemented, that change alone has the potential to dismantle legal immigration, with devastating consequences for families.

 

A final rule announced in mid-July and taking effect September 18 requires green card applicants to demonstrate they will not become a public charge. Federal law already stipulates that those seeking permanent residency or legal status demonstrate they will not rely on food stamps, Medicaid, or housing vouchers. But the new rule removes any definition for “public charge,” leaving it to the discretion of immigration officers to determine on an individualized basis.

 

“So now DHS and USCIS can deny people on whatever basis it wants without letting anyone comment on their criteria,” said David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. “The harm is that it will lead to more arbitrary denials for legal immigrants.”

 

All to say, one year into a crackdown on illegal immigration, the current policies have so crippled legal immigration that citizenship, and ceremonies like the one at Monticello, may become relics of the past.

 

An estimated 14 million foreign-born residents of the U.S. currently qualify for citizenship. Their stories are similar to those most Americans would find in their family tree, one reason Americans broadly support them. This year, 73 percent of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing, according to Gallup. That poll also finds 75 percent of Americans favor giving immigrants brought as children to the U.S. illegally a chance to become citizens, while a 2026 Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 64 percent oppose ending birthright citizenship.

 

Immigration was a hot topic in Jefferson’s day too. A Federalist Party majority in Congress passed restrictive new laws amid the slave revolution in Haiti, which stirred fears of Haitian refugees and ex-slaves coming to American shores. In the 1790s, Congress raised the residency requirement for citizenship from two years to five years to 14 years.

 

Jefferson, who spent five years as a diplomat in France before President George Washington appointed him the first secretary of state, saw immigration as a tool for securing America’s standing in the world, its security, and its economic interests. As the country’s third president, he called on Congress in 1801 to reconsider the recent restrictions.

 

“Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?” he said. A new Congress agreed, passing into law in 1802 a standard that continues today: Lawful permanent residents must reside continuously in the United States for five years to apply for citizenship.

 

Monticello’s July 4 naturalization ceremony comes brimming with tradition. The home’s East Lawn is the historic entrance Jefferson designed to welcome dignitaries and strangers, but the ceremony takes place on the West Lawn, the back entrance Jefferson reserved for family and friends. From there, the candidates for citizenship take their seats facing his iconic rotunda, the same view captured on the U.S. nickel, a familiar emblem of American democracy and civic belonging.

 

Jane Kamensky, the Harvard historian who became president and CEO of the foundation that runs Monticello in 2024, has steered the public narrative around Jefferson toward what one exhibit at the house called “the paradox of liberty.” Jefferson, by his rhetoric and his writing, established human equality and individual liberty at the core of America’s ideals, but by his practice enslaved hundreds of people, helping to set the United States on a course where racism and discrimination would play central roles. A tour of Monticello highlights the role of slaves on the plantation, and Jefferson as a flawed figure who fathered six children by slave Sally Hemings.

 

Kamensky sees the nation’s 250^th anniversary as an opportunity “to hold courageous conversations that look to the past to understand a vexed present and anticipate a more perfect future.” She welcomed the soon-to-be Americans in the front rows, saying, “We have always been a nation of immigrants. One of the very first printings of the Declaration in Philadelphia was in German.”

 

Under her direction, Monticello has partnered with civic organizations like Bridgeland’s More Perfect, along with immigration advocates and religious organizations. After the ceremony, one such group, Welcome.US, launched a citizen guide program to link volunteers with lawful permanent residents working toward citizenship. Volunteers help with citizenship test tutoring, interviewing skills, and English-language practice.

 

The ceremony closed with remarks from Welcome.US CEO Nazanin Ash, whose parents came to America from Iran. “We remember the names of the founders and presidents and legislators because these are the names history delivers,” she said, “but most of this story has been written by names history never records—ordinary Americans, like all of us, motivated to right wrongs, care for neighbors, and take on challenges in our communities.”

 

Once the citizens took the oath of allegiance, the ceremony adjourned to another Fourth of July tradition—free root beer floats on the lawn.

 

“This is a very, very beautiful day,” Chebwa Mutombo exclaimed. “I have waited for many days to see this one.”

 

When she arrived in 2019, Chebwa spoke no English. For two years she took classes in nearby Charlottesville while also working for a business making pillows and curtains.

 

“Was it hard to wait so long for this day?” I asked.

 

“Oh no, because I am an American now,” she said, breaking into a broad smile and fingering the bronze medal at her collar.