second-class citizen

American  

noun

1. a citizen, especially a member of a minority group, who is denied the social, political, and economic benefits of citizenship.

2. a person who is not accorded a fair share of respect, recognition, or consideration.

   The boss treats us all like second-class citizens.

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second-class citizen British  

noun

1. a person whose rights and opportunities are treated as less important than those of other people in the same society

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Example Sentences

What that says to a kid is, “My parent is working. My parent is on their phone. I am a second-class citizen to that.”

From Los Angeles Times

I felt like Black journalist Cinderella, like struggling all those years, feeling like a second-class citizen in media, and then ending up in the room with Oprah and getting the royal treatment and being able to look her in the eye and just tell her, "Thank you for representing for us for so long. Thank you for building your own network."

From Salon

He said his apparent placement on the U.S. government’s watchlist has rendered him a second-class citizen in his adopted country, and that his apparent removal from the list has failed to fully restore his rights.

From Seattle Times

For those who haven’t seen Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie, Gosling’s Ken anthem is a dramatic expression of the life-size doll’s woes as a second-class citizen in Barbieland — where Barbies are everything and Kens are just Kens.

From Los Angeles Times

There are several Kens in this movie, all of them amiable second-class citizen hunks of Barbie Land, played by actors including Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans and Ncuti Gatwa.

From Los Angeles Times