Test changes new obstacle to citizenship
The journey to American citizenship for the foreign-born has never been easy.
It always been a hurry-up-and-wait process. There are mountains of paperwork and deadlines, followed by long waiting periods during the application process.
The Trump administration just made the long process more difficult with changes to the citizenship test administered to all prospective new citizens. The new U.S. citizenship test, unveiled this month, is drawing harsh criticism. Some fear it will take longer to administer and further slow the application process, which already has been adversely affected by the pandemic.
Applicants will now be required to study up on 128 questions about American government, American history, symbols and holidays. Previously, the study guide contained 100 questions. Immigration advocates are concerned the new test will make it more difficult for working-class applicants with less formal education and daily exposure to English conversation to get a passing mark.
Use of the new test begins Dec. 1. The current test was put into play Oct. 1, 2008, when George W. Bush was in office. It has been undergoing review and updating for more than a year.
The test is one of the key requirements for obtaining U.S. citizenship through naturalization. Immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship must also pay a fee, clear background checks and be able to speak basic English.
We understand the need to periodically review and update procedures, but some of the changes are unwarranted.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials administering the test used to ask applicants 10 questions from the study list. If they answered six correctly, the minimum number needed to pass the test, that exam ended.
Under the new rules, USCIS officers must ask applicants 20 questions instead of 10. The applicant must answer all 20 questions and have at least 12 correct answers to pass the test.
The changes to the naturalization test would probably triple the time each immigration officer spends testing applicants, Sarah Pierce of the Migration Policy Institute told the Associated Press.
“These changes reduce the efficiency of this already struggling agency. The administration is adding hundreds of thousands of more minutes to these naturalization exams,” Pierce said.
The ideological bent to some of the questions is also troubling. One question on the new test asks, “Who does a U.S. senator represent?” Sounds simple enough, but the old answer of “all people of the state” is no longer good enough. The correct answer is now “citizens of their state.”
In a tweet, Doug Rand of Boundless Immigration called the new test “unnecessary, unjustified, overly complex, & shamelessly ideological,” adding “this is an obvious attempt to throw one more obstacle in front of immigrants legally eligible for U.S. citizenship.”
It does appear that way.
In September, federal officials tried to double the $640 citizenship application fee, but that move was blocked by a federal judge in California.
If the goal is to get more people through the proper procedures to gain citizenship and keep them from living in the shadows, it only makes sense to facilitate that journey.
But we suspect that isn’t the goal here, which is a shame, because there is nothing to be gained by making the process more difficult.