September 17th was Citizenship Day. In commemoration of that, more than 600 immigrants took the Oath of Allegiance. More than 7,400 people have taken that step this year in Denver alone–sworn the oath, become able to throw away their green cards and visitor’s visas, been assigned social security numbers (unless that happens at another time), the whole she-bang.

If you’ve been following this blog, I bet you can guess who I’m thinking of who wasn’t among those 600 yesterday.

Yet another Citizenship Day passed while Zuhair Mahd waited, unsure even whether the process his thus-far denied citizenship legally relies on has in fact been completed. And why? Because, apparently, even telling him that the name check was completed would compromise national security. In the name of national security, in fact, he cannot expect ever to see the results of that name check. If the FBI dug up something they didn’t like, Zuhair will never know what it is. He will never know what he is being accused of, or why he is being barred from citizenship. Even if the name check came up “clean,” whatever that even means, he is forbidden to know.

Generally, that doesn’t fly in court. In the United States we are guaranteed by law the right to face our accusers and know what we are being accused of. But though the U. S. Constitution is supposed to grant that right to every U. S. citizen–more, to every human being, citizen or no, standing on U. S. soil or coming under the jurisdiction of a U. S. court–we are told that “national security” trumps that basic right.

Lovely way to celebrate Citizen Day–and, incidentally, Constitution Week. Do you suppose the person who both proclaimed these commemorative exercises and then followed up the proclamation with six years of more or less spitting on the Constitution has a functioning sense of irony?