Last week, on an unseasonably mild day in early September, I went to my husband’s citizenship oath ceremony. At such ceremonies, immigrants who have passed the civics test and met all the other criteria for naturalization pledge to support the constitution and to obey the laws of the U.S., after which they receive a certificate of citizenship.

The DC ceremony was a reassuring rite, the very picture of civic normalcy. The League of Women Voters was there to distribute voter registration cards; one of their cheerful representatives had made chitchat earlier that morning with members of the dappled crowed that formed a long queue outside the federal courthouse. The League cosponsored a post-ceremony social with Daughters of the American Revolution, an organization I had always associated with nativism and racism, but whose representative—an African American woman—spoke kind and welcoming words at the ceremony.

The officiating judge read from George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, underscoring liberal principles of religious toleration and civic equality: everyone has equal civil rights and protections in America, no matter what their religion or ethnicity, no matter whether native-born or naturalized. Of course, this was in Washington, DC, arguably the most liberal city in America. Still, I was surprised to see Jeanine Pirro on the program and listened closely to see what sort of rhetoric she would bring to the occasion. In her short speech, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia talked about her own immigrant grandparents and how proud she was of her Lebanese heritage. The logic of her narrative lay somewhere between the melting pot and multiculturalism: one needn’t stop being Arab or Salvadoran to become an American. America proudly embraces multitudes.

A representative from USCIS addressed the crowd of 125 new citizens and their families and friends. “And if you have children under 18 living with you …,” she concluded, jubilantly raising both arms in the air, “they’re now citizens, too!” The audience applauded.

**

Meanwhile, outside on the streets, it was another matter. DC was under occupation by military police and the national guard, the latter mostly being drawn from states of the former confederacy. Brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people were (and still are) being stalked like prey and taken into custody by nameless, faceless ICE operatives: bounty hunters, paid per capture. Legal residents and even citizens have been swept up by these unaccountable shock troops, held under inhumane conditions, and even sometimes hastily deported.

The day before our pleasant federal courthouse ceremony, the Supreme Court had ruled that racial and occupational profiling for deportation arrests is acceptable, at least for the time being. Put as simply as possible, this means that if you are dark-skinned or speak Spanish or speak English with an accent, then you are subject to being stopped and questioned. If you have left the house without an I.D. that establishes legal residency, you may be detained. This is doubly true if you work on a farm or are present at a pickup site for day laborers—or if you perform any of the work associated with undocumented immigrants. The majority ruling establishes a burden of proof for some (persons of Hispanic heritage are about 19% of the population) that will not apply to others and treats being held in custody as a minor inconvenience.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a stinging dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Slamming the majority opinion, it concludes:

The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be “free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” … After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees, I dissent.

**

New citizens pledge to uphold the constitution and to obey the laws of the U.S. The constitution and laws establish important institutional safeguards, but the least one might say today is that institutional failure is apparent and accelerating. A great many of the 100 questions included on the civics test should now have asterisks placed beside them: “What is the supreme law of the land?” “What is the rule of law?” Certainly, answers to all of the questions involving the first amendment, the generation of laws, and separation of powers have been cast under a shadow by Trump’s executive orders and vengeful acts.

Perhaps sensing the disconnect between a liberal constitution and an increasingly authoritarian regime, USCIS has announced plans to launch a revised version of the test, indicating that “the most sacred citizenship in the world … should only be reserved for aliens who will fully embrace our values and principles as a nation.” But what do we now think those values are?

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent reflects some of the best principles, the most attractive values, of a liberalism—liberal capitalism—that we on the left have been criticizing for a century. And central to our critique has been the idea that the effort to reconcile labor and capital at the heart of this liberalism has been doomed to failure. What do we do now that we’re proven to be right?

What’s next is anybody’s guess, but this is already much worse than anything most of us might have anticipated a year ago.