Tankoano lives in Houston Texas after serving three years in the Army for 2018 to 2021. He applied for a new passport in 2019 only to be told he wasn’t a U.S. citizen.
I am a New York-born soldier now living in Houston, Texas, who was recently sworn in as a citizen after a years-long legal battle with the U.S. government over my citizenship.
There is a little known problem of statelessness in America and my recently resolved case highlights the flaws in the current system and the urgent need for change. November is National Veterans and Military Families Month and is the perfect time for us to reflect on the need to fix this problem. I was issued a U.S. passport at birth and served in the U.S. Army, risking my life for this country. I had always believed myself to be an American citizen. However, when I applied for a new passport in 2019, I was told much to my surprise that I wasn't a citizen after all and was at risk of being deported to Africa. I was shocked and found this hard to believe.
The State Department argued that since my father was a diplomat from Niger with immunity, I was exempt from U.S. laws that grant birthright citizenship to those born on U.S. soil, even though I was born in Manhattan. They claimed their earlier decision to issue me an American passport had been a mistake.
What followed was a three-year legal battle that left me in a state of legal limbo. I was considered “stateless” because I had renounced my citizenship of Niger and thus I was a “citizen of nowhere.”
I was given a notice to appear in court as part of a deportation process. The reason cited for the rejection of my citizenship application was that I lacked "good moral character," based on my rejected passport application. As someone who had served in the military and passed multiple background checks, this was particularly upsetting. Imagine finding out that your government thinks you lack good moral character, even though you served in the military overseas. It’s an organization in which I embodied the deep moral values of honesty and integrity.
The government's treatment of my case and the many other veterans who have faced deportation or statelessness due to technicalities or bureaucracy is unacceptable. These issues undermine the sacrifices and contributions of those who have served honorably and put themselves in harm's way for this country. This also goes against American values and the principles of justice and fairness that we serve to uphold.
This November is a good time for us to consider addressing this issue, and to ensure that all veterans, especially those who have served in combat, receive the benefits we deserve. It is a time to honor those who have served and sacrificed for their country.
I commend the efforts of the White House to address the deportation of veterans and the Department of Veterans Affairs for providing information to non-citizen veterans on how to become citizens. However, more needs to be done to fix the broken system that allows statelessness to continue.
There are an estimated 218,000 stateless people in America. We all have our own stories, and as a veteran, I am just one formerly stateless person. I’ve recently met other stateless people through United Stateless, an organization seeking to fix this bureaucratic nightmare for all of us. Thanks to our advocacy, the U.S. Department for Homeland Security recently issued new guidance on statelessness. The new guidance will help by allowing immigration officers the ability to consider statelessness as a discretionary factor in their decisions. But the changes are only temporary, and we need to enshrine them into law through the legislative process. To do that, we need to pass the Stateless Protection Act.
Statelessness is a pressing issue in the United States. Stateless people are denied access to education, job opportunities, healthcare, and the freedom to travel, perpetuating their vulnerability and hardship. We must raise awareness, promote legislative solutions, and empower stateless individuals to access legal status and the protection they deserve on American soil.
We need a system that recognizes the contributions of all individuals who serve in the military, regardless of their parentage or immigration status. We also need to legally enshrine clear and fair procedures for verifying citizenship and addressing cases of statelessness.
As we mark National Veterans and Military Families Month, let’s remember the sacrifices and bravery of those who have served, and commit to fixing the bureaucratic limbo of statelessness. Let us ensure that no veteran is left in a state of legal limbo or forced to fight for their own citizenship. Let us honor their service by providing them with the rights and protections they have earned. I urge all Americans to support efforts to fix the broken system. It's high time we honor our commitment to our veterans in the most meaningful way possible.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.