President Donald Trump attempted to end birthright citizenship in his first week in office when he issued Executive Order 14160, targeting children born on American soil and challenging a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment since 1868. In doing so, he reopened a wound that many of us know all too well: the question of who deserves to belong.

The executive order, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," takes aim at the very clause that granted formerly enslaved people, for the first time, full and equal citizenship. Although Trump’s executive order was quickly challenged and remains under injunction ‒ the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments April 1 ‒ its premise echoes a long lineage of exclusion, a lineage rooted in the belief that American belonging must be earned through the approval of those already in power.

As a Black American whose citizenship is inherited through the legacy of slavery, I live within a paradox.

My ancestors did not migrate here seeking the promise of America ‒ they were America’s coerced foundation. Their forced labor, survival and resistance are the soil from which my citizenship grows. I did not have to "qualify" for this country because this country was built on........

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