Praying for the World January 19, 2026 Issue

Overcoming travel fears in my adopted country

God is All; therefore, wherever we might be, we are always safe because we can never be anywhere where God, good, is absent.

Name Withheld

I wasn’t born or raised in the United States, but in the early 2000s, I had the privilege of studying here as a college student, and I’ve been living and working in the US ever since. I came to love this country and have always felt embraced by its people. Several years ago, I applied for US citizenship and became a naturalized citizen.

Though I have always lived lawfully in the US, recent news reports had me feeling increasingly unsettled, even unsafe. I found myself being afraid to travel, even domestically within the US.

Several months ago, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting just outside Washington, DC, the home of our nation’s capital. The day before my trip, a friend alerted me to a major political event that had been organized to take place in the capital that same weekend and to protests planned nationwide on the same day. When I went online and began to read news about the event, I became fearful that I might inadvertently be caught in large protesting crowds. I would also have to fly into DC for my meeting and go through security checkpoints at more than one airport. Though I am legally a citizen, I feared that my immigration status might be questioned.

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