That said, it cannot be denied that, in the final analysis, the United States continues to offer (political) possibilities that are not available to these recent African immigrants back home in Africa. The explanation for this is as follows: The conception of citizenship that prevails, albeit imperfectly, in the United States, is modern, vis-à-vis the regnant conception across Africa, which is predominantly static. Whereas, in principle, American citizenship is open to anyone who is born in, emigrates to, and is dedicated to the foundational tenets of the United States, citizenship in many African countries is still framed and invariably weighed down by the logic of autochthony. As President Trump stated during a naturalization ceremony in January 2019, echoing a belief that has served as a beacon to successive generations of Americans, “The beauty and majesty of [American] citizenship is that it draws no distinctions of race, or class, or faith, or gender, or background. No matter where our story begins, whether we are the first generation or the tenth generation, we are all equal. We are one team and one people proudly saluting one great American flag” [PDF].
Source: www.cfr.org
