A top Trump administration official said on Thursday that he is working to make the U.S. citizenship test more difficult, saying the current version is “just too easy.”
Speaking at an event in Washington on Thursday hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank, Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, argued that the test allows for people to be “coached” through the immigration process who may not qualify for citizenship under U.S. law.
Edlow first floated the idea in an interview with The New York Times in July.
“The test as it’s laid out right now, it’s not very difficult,” Edlow told The Times in July. “It’s very easy to kind of memorize the answers. I don’t think we’re really comporting with the spirit of the law.”
The current citizenship test, crafted in partnership with education professionals, requires a basic understanding of English in order to answer at least six of 10 questions drawn from a list of 100 questions available online. Test questions focus on American history, voting history and rights, government structure and geography.
“A question of simply, ‘Hey, name two federal holidays,’ and, you know, ‘Name one branch of government’ or ‘name your governor.’ It’s simply not enough,” Edlow said Thursday. “We need to know more, especially if we’re going to really understand whether someone has a true attachment to the Constitution as required by the statute.”
Among changes to the questions and the test format, Edlow also recommended adding an essay question outlining what becoming an American would represent to the candidate. While there is no timeline for the changes proposed Thursday, USCIS reported last week that it would resume interviewing applicants’ neighbors and coworkers, a practice not enforced since the George H.W. Bush administration.
“I am declaring war on fraud,” Edlow continued. “I am declaring war on anyone that is coming to this country and wants to get a benefit, but doesn’t want the responsibility of what it means to actually be a U.S. citizen.”