The Trump administration and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rolled out a new set of questions for the citizenship test, which went into effect for people who apply for naturalization after December 1st. The set consists of 128 questions, and applicants will be required to answer 12 out of 20 correctly, as opposed to the current required six out of 10. Additionally, people will need to answer all 20 questions, even if they correctly respond to the first 12.
As someone who teaches immigrants citizenship classes to help them pass the test, I have seen how hard they work to study and learn the history questions in an unfamiliar language. The increase in the number of questions and their difficulty is already causing tension and stress for the people I teach, and I can only imagine it must be worse for people without the time or resources to spend on studying.
This adjustment to the citizenship exam clearly shows a bias against immigrants and poses a barrier for them to naturalize. In 2016, Trump ran on eradicating illegal immigration, and the White House website currently claims his goal is “ensuring the swift removal of unlawful entrants.”
It says nothing about limiting naturalizations. Why, then, is this exam such an obvious deterrent for people who already have lawful status and want to finally become citizens? Trump has made it clear that he wants to keep the United States “American,” which for him and too many others means caucasian.
In addition to making obtaining citizenship more difficult and intimidating, the questions are conspicuously right-leaning.
For one thing, at least 10 questions focus on military history, including questions about the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars. These questions seem to be included to glorify the American military and an interventionist history that many Americans currently have issues with.
The fact that USCIS officers now have to ask 20 questions instead of a maximum of 10, citizenship interviews will take much longer, reducing the amount that can take place in one day and the overall number of people that can naturalize.
This new set of questions will limit lawful permanent residents’ ability to naturalize and continue Trump’s blatant targeting of immigrants.