Do you think you could pass the U.S. citizenship test today?

Most Americans probably couldn’t and that’s exactly the issue. In this episode, Rosanna breaks down the new citizenship rules taking effect on October 20th, from a tougher civics test to deeper “good moral character” checks (yes, even your social media). With over 30 years in immigration law, Rosanna explains what’s changing, why it matters, and what applicants need to do now.

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Transcript

Everyone’s talking about U.S. immigration law, but nobody really knows how it works. I’m Rosanna Berardi. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, a former immigration inspector at the border, university professor, and founder and managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law.

I’ve done nothing but U.S. immigration law for over 30 years, and it’s time to stop the misinformation on all sides. I’m gonna tell you how it all works, the inside story. This is Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Changes to the U.S. Citizenship Test

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Immigration Weekly podcast with yours truly, Rosanna Berardi. Attention, if you want to be a U.S. citizen, do not delay, this is not a veiled sales pitch. Today is October 8th. The Trump administration is changing the U.S. citizenship requirements and criteria on October 20th. No time to delay here.

What is actually happening? Well, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know, this administration is one of narrowing the funnel of who can come to the United States. It’s part of the messaging, part of their brand.

America’s closed for business, and if you wanna be here, boy, we’re gonna put you through the wringer. So let’s break this down. Everyone hates that phrase, but it works so well in a podcast.

Anyway, what is happening? Okay, roll it back. To become a U.S. citizen, citizen of the United States of America, you can’t just do that. There’s some requirements. You have to be a green card holder for five years if you received your green card through employment, or three years if you were lucky enough to marry a U.S. citizen. You also have to live in your jurisdiction, and there are some other detailed requirements.

The Form N-400 is used to file for U.S. citizenship. It’s also called naturalization. So those two things are used interchangeably.

The naturalization application, the N-400, has been expanded to 25 pages. Woo! People say to me all the time, you just fill out forms.

No, we don’t. We are strategic and we analyze those forms so you, the listener, can get the results you want. So in order to apply for U.S. citizenship, you have to file Form N-400, which is a form that is mostly biographical in nature. Your name, your address, where you lived for the past five years, a series of very detailed questions. A series of questions regarding criminality, membership in any type of political group, anything in your past internationally. So today, if you were to file that application, the government would receive it.

They would issue a receipt notice. They would ask you to come to the local U.S. CIS office in your community to get your fingerprints and your photo, and you ultimately would be scheduled for a citizenship interview. So the way that the U.S. citizenship interview works is U.S. CIS, who’s the agency that can afford benefits to an individual, asks a series of questions about U.S. history and government. If you were to have your interview today on October 8th and you filed your application before this October 20th deadline, the government would ask you 10 questions. Of the 10, you’d have to get six correct. Well, my friends, after October 20th, those 10 questions are doubling to 20.

Also, those 10 questions were at a pool of 100 questions. Now, the new questions, 20 questions, are being drawn from a pool of 128 questions. And to pass, you need to get 12 of the 20 correct.

Why is this a big deal? Well, the 100 questions, I would put money on the fact that the average American, on a good day, couldn’t answer them. And now they’re increasing the number of questions and they’re making the questions more of a how and a why.

For example, why is the Electoral College important? Name two ideas from the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Why did the U.S. enter the Persian Gulf War? Now, these are harder questions. The current test is more of a yes, no, or a date, or more straightforward. This is harder, harder for people not born in the United States.

Now, don’t panic, but be prepared. What you wanna do, USCIS has a lot of study guides for these new questions. You can go on there, but you gotta practice.

I looked at some of these. Why did the U.S. enter the Persian Gulf War? I don’t know, I’m a lawyer, I’m embarrassed.

I don’t know the answer to that. But this is how the questions are going. So there’s something in terms of what they call the early stop threshold.

They’re going to ask you 20 questions. Now, the test ends early if you get 12 in a row correct. And the test also ends early if you get nine incorrect.

Now, what if you’re older? What if you’re 65? If you’re 65 and you’ve been a green card holder for 20 years, the government’s gonna give you the old test.

They’re gonna give you the 10-question test, and you need six for it to be passable. This is as clear as mud. So the takeaway on this test, if you do not file for citizenship before October 20th, you will be tested on 20 questions from a possible 128.

English Language and Good Moral Character Requirements

These questions are more difficult. Focus on why and how, like why is the Electoral College important? The answer to that one is because we don’t vote by popular vote in the United States and the Electoral College equalizes the size of states.

And if you’re 65 or older and you’ve been a green card holder for 20 years or more, you will get the benefit of the easier test. What’s the messaging here? You wanna be a citizen?

We’re gonna make sure you know about America, even though our citizens that are born here don’t have a clue. Next, what else are they doing? The English language requirement.

This has always been a part of the citizenship test. This is not a Trump administration thing. This is always been a part of it, still required.

And it covers if you can speak, read and write in English. Reading, you must be able to read one of three sentences correctly. Writing, you must be able to write one of three sentences correctly.

And your speaking ability will be assessed during the interview. Now, again, don’t panic. There’s a lot of sample sentences on the USCIS website.

And there are exceptions. If you’re over 50 and you’ve been a green card holder for 20 years, you don’t have to do this. If you’re 55 and older and you’ve been here for 15 years, you don’t have to do this.

And also there’s a medical waiver. If there’s something that precludes you from hearing properly, you’re exempt from the English language requirement. So example, a family member of ours who was over 70, had her green card for 30 years, applied for citizenship.

She did not have to do the English language requirement. So what is it again? You have to read one of three sentences.

You have to write one of three sentences and you have to speak unless you’re older. That’s the takeaway. This is not new.

This has always been part of the citizenship requirement. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. There is something called the good moral character requirement.

This has always been a part of citizenship applications. Good moral character. Let’s dive into that.

So good moral character under the immigration law is an old concept. It’s been in the law for decades. And good moral character means you’re a good person.

And it used to mean you didn’t have any significant criminal convictions. Now, people say, what about parking tickets? What about traffic tickets?

I got in a bar fight. No one got hurt. Those are things that will not be included under good moral character.

But now the government’s saying, whoa, we’re gonna look closer at good moral character. And we’re going to reinstate something called the totality of circumstances. Lawyers, if you’re listening, we hear this all the time.

Totality of circumstances, we’re gonna look at everything. You’ve got to show good moral character five years before filing your application or three years if you married a U.S. citizen. Past conduct, even before that five years, could be a factor.

The New Standard and What to Do Next

What’s the government looking for now in terms of good moral character? Community service, caregiving, education, lawful employment, tax compliant, civic contributions. What would be something that would ding you?

Repeated traffic infractions, aggressive conduct, social media posts deemed anti-American or extremist. They also want to see if you did have something in your past, completion of your probation, letters of support, evidence of reform. Whoa, time out here.

Holy crow, they’re gonna look at your social media? You bet they are. This administration’s looking at social media no matter what.

When I looked at this good moral character revision, they want squeaky clean Americans. They want new Americans that are squeaky clean. They know about America, they can speak English, they love this country, they do good things in their community, they pay all their taxes, they don’t drive in the excess of the speeding limit too often.

They want squeaky clean new Americans. Now look at the rest of the American population. You guys, I just can’t even comment.

Nonetheless, if you’re gonna apply for citizenship after October 20th, this good moral character determination, totality of the circumstances will be applied. And it’s gonna be up to an officer. These USCIS officers now have really sweeping power.

They’ve always had the ability to approve and deny applications, but this is gonna come down to whether the officer believes that you’re a good person. They also said they might do neighborhood investigations to talk to your neighbors, to validate your character claims. You guys, oh my God.

Can you imagine going to your neighbor and being like, oh, hi, your neighbor’s applying for US citizenship. Do you like that person? And what if you’re a person that had an anti-Trump sign on your lawn and your neighbor was like, well, that person shouldn’t be an American.

This is where it gets wonky and sideways. I don’t like it, but no one asked me. October 20th, this is all happening.

Will this be legally challenged like most things? Maybe. The equal protection concerns.

You know, people are arguing that this isn’t fair to non-native speakers. They’re also criticizing the way that this was rolled out. This was rolled out in a policy memo, did not go through the official channels of the Federal Register.

There’s some First Amendment concerns, ideological vetting, social media, expressive conduct. There’s no lawsuits yet. But once this goes into effect, I imagine there are going to be several lawsuits and maybe there’ll be an injunction which will put this new procedure requirements on hold.

But today there’s not. So what do you need to know? If you’re applying for US citizenship, if your friend or neighbor has always wanted to be a US citizen, do it now, file the application.

If you file before October 20th, the current rules, which are the easier ones, apply to you. Okay? We’re getting a flurry of calls.

People wanna file right away as they should. After October 20th, citizenship applicants are gonna face tougher standards. They’re going to look closer into their good moral character.

They might even assess your character by way of your neighbors. And if you have had issues or problems, you gotta talk to an immigration lawyer on this one. People say on citizenship, I can do it myself.

It’s just a form with some boxes. If you’re squeaky clean, yes, you can. Of course you can.

Just like if you can do your taxes, if you have a 1040 or a document or W-2 that says here’s your money and you have nothing else, you could probably do that yourself. I’m not saying that, but you probably could. Citizenship is changing.

This administration is changing everything. They’re narrowing that funnel. They want squeaky clean people to be Americans, even though I would contend that many of Americans are not.

But these rules are challenging. They’re not impossible. You’ve gotta, like anything, be prepared, be strategic, get that application in before October 20th.

Think about your character. What do you do? Do you volunteer at your church?

Do you help your elderly grandmother? If you’re not sure you need to get legal guidance on this one, you don’t wanna roll the dice and get a denial. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

There is so much going on in the immigration world. It’s hard for us to keep up with. Make sure you like our podcast, you subscribe to it.

Hey, give us a review if you really, really love this. Share it with your friends and family so you can be the smartest person at your dinner table. We’ll see you next time.

This was Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi. Thanks for joining. Be sure to connect with me, Rosanna Berardi, on LinkedIn or go to our law firm at berardiimmigrationlaw.com.

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