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What is it like becoming a citizen of a country that has banned citizens of your own?

The U.S. citizenship test is an exam of a lifetime for many asylum seekers, visa lottery holders, and refugees because their entire future depends on it. This piece explores the process of taking the citizenship exam and becoming an American citizen for immigrants from countries whose citizens have been banned from entering the United States under President Trump’s executive order)

(*Names of two characters Shela and Mamoon, have been changed to protect their identity)

On a balmy night in Caracas, the police raided Fanny Bello’s home and assaulted her. They tied her hands and feet, and left her weakening body on the kitchen floor. This happened in 2009, during the controversial rule of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Bello, the former minister of agriculture in Venezuela had written a book criticizing Chavez. She was under attack.

On a bleak, Spring afternoon in New York in 2018, Bello is attending a citizenship class on the third floor of the New York Public Library in Upper Manhattan. She is in the process of preparing for her U.S. citizenship exam. “After the Venezuelan police assaulted me, I sought political asylum in the United States,” she says. She has been living in New York for the past six years. Along with Bello, immigrants of various races, ethnicities and backgrounds attend the free citizenship classes offered twice a week at the library to prepare for the exam.

Some students are permanent residents, some have different kinds of visas, some have taken political asylum, and some are refugees. On each of the round tables in the classroom, lies a copy of the newsletter, “Elizabeth Claire’s Easy English News.”The headline reads “Sanctuary cities,” followed by an explanation of “what is a SANK choo AIR ee city?”

Before the class starts, the teacher, Robin Poley, enthusiastically writes, “The flag, pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem,” on the white board, and passes around worksheets to the students.

Shela*, a former student, who has recently passed her citizenship exam has come to the class to talk to the students about her experience. Shela is from Iran and if she goes back to her country, she will be imprisoned. She is a US-Iran dual citizen. The Iranian law prohibits Iranians from holding dual nationalities. The Iranian government considers dual citizens as Iranian citizens only. If she returns to Iran, she will be considered a traitor. In November 2017, Reuters reportedthat at least 30 dual nationals had been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) since the signing of the Iran nuclear deal in July 2015.

Shela and Bello are both from two of the eight countries whose citizens have been banned from entering the United States. In October 2017, President Trump’s administration crafted a new, more permanent travel ban after the initial versions were contested in court. Under the new ban, citizens from Syria, North Korea, Iran, Chad, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Venezuela cannot enter the United States.

If Shela had applied for U.S. immigration in 2018 from Iran, it would have been impossible for her to come here. As for Bello, the process would have taken longer and she would have faced extreme vetting, as the U.S. government is still processing political asylum requests from Venezuela, despite the ban. Yet the processing time has becoming a lot slower because in 2016, there was a 168 percent increase in political asylum requests from Venezuela, according to a PEW Research Center study.

Shela and her husband Mamoon* came to the United States six years ago on a diversity, lottery visa. Both are ex-bankers, and their two daughters are doctors. The daughters studied medicine in Iran and came to the U.S. for graduate school on student visas and are now settled here. Shela has still kept her Iranian passport, she feels a sentimental connection with the country she was born and raised in. “I didn’t want to cut all ties with the country of birth. My brother and two sisters still live there,” she says.

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In order for an immigrant to be eligible to become a citizen through naturalization, the United States Center of Immigration Services (USCIS) requires a person to be able to read, write, and speak in English, and have knowledge and an understanding of U.S. history and government. Additionally, the person needs to have continuous residence in the United States as a green card holder for at least 5 years since filing the citizenship application.

After the citizenship application is submitted, an immigrant needs to pass the citizenship interview and test. During the naturalization interview, a USCIS officer asks questions about an applicant’s background and why they are becoming U.S. citizens. The applicant is also required to take an English and civics test. The English test has three components: reading, writing, and speaking. The civics test covers important U.S. history and government topics. In the civics test, some of the common questions include naming the rights in the Declaration of Independence, naming powers of the federal government, and explaining what happened at the Constitutional Convention.Usually ten questions are asked and in order to pass the test, an immigrant needs to answer at least six questions correctly.

Once the applicants clear the exam, they are then invited to one of the many U.S. citizenship ceremonies held around the country each year. Depending on the state, these ceremonies are usually held twice a month where all the new citizens gather and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, originally composed by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army Officer during the Civil War.

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Three quarters of the third floor of the library is fashioned into a classroom with dark, wooden, round tables filling the space, with yellow walls that have colorful maps and posters. Wearing a short, layered haircut, with deep cinnamon colored streaks and donning a long camel colored coat, and black leather booties, Shela poses for a photo in front of the map of the United States at library before the class starts. Shela’s sense of achievement at passing the exam is palpable. It is a custom for all students from Poley’s class, who clear the exam, to get their photo taken. This photo is then displayed on one of the yellow walls, along with the flag of their country of birth.

Shela explains how she was initially intimated by the officer interviewing her, because he didn’t smile back at her. She clenches her fists together, “The officer was speaking really fast in English and it was hard for me to follow what he was saying,” she says. Even though Shela had studied English in Iran, she finds spoken English very different in the United States. Flustered by the language barrier, Shela mixed up her wedding date when the officer asked to confirm her marriage to Mamoon. She blushes, giggles, lowers her tone, and says, “I can’t believe I mixed the month and the day of my wedding day! I have been married for 30 years.” The officer still did not smile or laugh when she corrected herself and continued asking further questions about American civics and history. She says that the easiest question on the test was the name of the speaker of the House of Representatives. “I got Paul Ryan right,” she says, laughing again. She ends her talk by giving a tip to her former classmates to learn the names of the native American tribes because that is one question that the officers asked her and her husband, both.

For many immigrants, passing the test is hard because English is their second language and a major component of the exam is English reading, writing and speaking. “English is sometimes the second, third or fourth language for many of our students! So, we really emphasize that they learn the language and offer them free ESL classes as well,” says Poley.

Roja Heydarpour is an Iranian-American journalist who teaches citizenship classes at the Brooklyn Public Library. She understands that it can be nerve-wracking for many immigrants to take the test. “I took the test myself when I was 14,” she says. Even though she had attended school in the United States, she was still nervous because a part of her felt that her entire future depended on this exam.

Heydarpour says that as the immigration laws are becoming stricter, the citizenship classes are getting more crowded. “I have students who tell me that they have been here 20 years and are now concerned about their immigration status, and are trying to become citizens,” she says. She also notes that as more people are submitting citizenship applications, the wait time for the interview and test is also becoming longer. “It used to be 12–18 months and now it is 20–24 months,” she says.

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During the citizenship class, Poley names the 50 states and the five U.S. territories, “If Puerto Rico becomes a state, we are going to have to re-do all the flags,” she says, “So, my tip is, as soon as you all pass the citizenship test, get into the flag business!” Everyone laughs.

Poley then hands out photos of the U.S. president, vice president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. She asks the students to write down their names under the photos. Then she calls Ayla, from Turkey, to come to the white board and write down the names so everyone can read and memorize. Ayla spells the name of the Vice President “Mice Pence.” Poley corrects her by saying, “Even though what you have written might seem appropriate, but his name is Mike!” Not everyone gets the pun, but a few students jolt in laughter.

One of the class assignments for the students is to draw a flag of their native country and then draw the flag of the United States. After drawing the map of their native country, all the students were asked to break into groups and discuss in English, what their flag represents. “The red shows all the blood that spilled to create my country,” says Yolanda, who is from China. She wearing a scarlet top and explains how the color red in the Chinese flag symbolizes the blood of the soldiers.

The class ends with Poley introducing the lyrics of the American national anthem to the students. Poley plays Beyoncé’s 2004 national anthem performance at the super bowl on the T.V. screen and asks everyone to sing along.

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After being persecuted in Venezuela, Bello finds her life in the United States liberating. Bello had a successful career as an economist and then in the government as the agriculture minister. But she did not support Chavez’s government and was very vocal against his policies. In her book, Carta a Chavez en san Desplome, she heavily criticized Chavez. “If I go back, they [the government] might kill me,” she says.

Speaking about the police raid at her home, she says, “When they put the gun to my head, I knew I had to leave the country.” Bello picks up the copy of Elizabeth Claire’s Easy English newsletter on table in front of her, and rolls it like a scroll, and then twists it at the center. “You see this newspaper, it is twisted,” she says, holding it in one hand and pointing it with the other. “This is what the shock of the police persecution did to me,” she says.

When she applied for political asylum in the United States, it only took a month for her application to get processed at that time. Bello is divorced and has a son who lives in Costa Rica who comes to visit her every few months. Her parents have passed away. Her only family left in Venezuela is her cousins, who she says, are living a difficult life, as the food shortages and poverty in the country increase. What she misses the most about Venezuela is the tropical weather. “I hate the cold on the East Coast. The weather here freezes my brain!” she says, laughing. She has submitted her application for U.S. citizenship and is currently preparing for her test. She says that she enjoys attending the citizenship classes. “I come here for Robin. I enjoy the way she teaches these classes,” she says.

For Shela, becoming an American citizen meant starting a new life of freedom with her daughters and husband. But it also meant never seeing her brother and sisters again as Iranian citizens are banned from entering the United States. “If I ever decide to go back, it will be next to impossible to reach Iran. I will have to go through Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, and the officer will ask all sorts of questions and if he doesn’t like me he will not let me go! I am too scared of all this immigration process. I will be okay spending the rest of my life in the United States,” she says.

Bello feels emancipated after leaving Venezuela. “It is very easy to adapt in a country, where there is liberty and democracy,” she says thoughtfully. “Democracy is a wonderful thing and I would never go back,” she adds. Yet Shela feels emotionally connected to Iran because her of her siblings. “Thank God for the internet, I can at least see their faces online,” she says.