Though it took nearly two centuries, citizenship in the United States has been a settled question. President Donald Trump's second administration is actively unsettling it. On Inauguration Day last year, Trump issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship, directly challenging established guarantees. The Supreme Court, with its growing appetite for revisiting precedent, said it will consider the issue and decide this summer whether presidents have the final say on who can be American. But this is not just another episode of constitutional brinkmanship. These developments reveal a deeper shift: Citizenship is increasingly treated as conditional rather than absolute, a credential more than an obligation. In practice, its legal meaning and the rights it confers have been eclipsed by partisan judgments about who belongs.