HOW MUCH IS being an American citizen worth?
At this annual time of patriotic renewal, that's a crass, unheroic question to ask. But it hovers over the land like lingering smoke after the fireworks.In unprecedented numbers, immigrants are suddenly rushing to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to seek full U.S. citizenship.
By no small coincidence, the trend comes just as Congress debates whether to cut off some welfare benefits to non-citizens. In California, which last fall passed proposition 187 calling for restricting government payments to immigrants, applications for citizenship are deluging the naturalization offices. In Los Angeles alone, requests are up fivefold from a year ago.
If many of these newcomers are cramming for the civics exams largely out of concern for their pocket books, they aren't alone.
At the other end of society's spectrum are the two dozen American billionaires said to be relinquishing their American citizenship for lavish lifestyles in the Bahamas, Ireland or some other pleasant destinations where taxes are minuscule.
What would Francis Scott Key have thought, as a prisoner in his cramped ship cell in the Baltimore harbor in 1814, anxiously watching the British bombardment light up the night sky and praying that dawn would find the tattered Old Glory still flying proudly over Fort McHenry?
Perhaps we're making citizenship seem too easy, too ordinary, a matter of merely boning up on U.S. history and reciting the answers to questions such as "What are the colors of our flag?" and "What is the president's official home?"
How is it that so many people now see citizenship in terms of what it will bring them?
Congress has recently given the INS $52 million in a push to process applicants for citizenship. And the lawmakers are working on a measure to force the billionaire ex-patriots to pay their taxes ($2.4 billion over 10 years) and even to have their names published in a kind of hall of shame.
But it will take a change of heart by the people, not a change of law, to restore what it means to be a full participant in a country whose purpose and formation symbolize so much more than material wealth.
The founders often spoke of the new government, by the people and for the people, as a bold experiment with a potential for setting an example for the entire globe.
Just before he was sworn in as president, Abraham Lincoln echoed that thought by remarking that the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence "gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time."
If Americans fail in taking up that responsibility, the cost will be dear for everyone.