Month: November 2025

USCIS Introduces New Citizenship Test

By Joe Guzzardi

President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order (EO) 14161, “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” directed the Department of Homeland Security to promote lawful immigrants’ proper assimilation and to foster “a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.”

In accordance with Trump’s EO, effective mid-October 2025, citizenship candidates began taking a slightly revised version of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) test. USCIS administers the Naturalization Civics test pursuant to the statutory requirements found in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), section 312, which requires aliens to demonstrate knowledge of American history and civics as a basic citizenship requirement for naturalization. The law states that a naturalization applicant must have “an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language” and have a “knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of the history, and of the principles and form of government, of the United States.”

EO and the INA have set reasonable, noble goals for lawful permanent residents who must have lived in the U.S. for five years or more; LPRs who gained their immigration status through marriage to a U.S. citizen have a three-year wait period. Most test-takers will pass and become American citizens. However, based on my personal 20-year experience in the California public school system preparing refugees and amnesty recipients for the citizenship test, most will not truly be competent in the required skills.

The Oral Civics Test is the main way the government checks U.S. history and government knowledge. Here’s how it works: Beginning in the middle of October 2025, those applying for citizenship will be expected to correctly answer 12 out of 20 questions that are randomly selected from an updated bank of 128 questions. Questions cover topics like the Constitution, government branches, American history, and citizens’ rights and responsibilities. The administrator asks the questions out loud, and the reply must be made out loud. Previously, applicants only had to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly from a pool of 100 questions. With the change, the number of possible questions increases to 128, and applicants must answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly — twice as many as before. To ensure accuracy, the U.S. Library of Congress vets all questions and answers and again USCIS made all answers available so applicants could prepare.

The English test checks three skills: speaking, reading, and writing. The officer asks a simple question to evaluate verbal and comprehension skills. Then, the applicant must read one of three simple sentences. Finally, they must write one of those sentences. Two chances are offered to pass each section.

Note that USCIS offers generous exceptions.

The 50/20 Rule

If you’re at least 50 years old and have been a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, for at least 20 years, you may be exempt from taking the English language portion of the test. You’ll still need to take the civics test, but you can take it in your native language, making it more accessible for non-English speakers.

55/15 Rule

Similarly, if you’re 55 or older and have been a permanent resident for at least 15 years, you’re also exempt from the English language test. Like the 50/20 exemption, you’ll still have to complete the civics test, but again, you can do so in your native language.

65/20 Special Consideration

If you’re 65 or older and have been a permanent resident for at least 20 years, you’re eligible for special consideration. Not only are you exempt from the English language test, but you also qualify to take a simplified version of the civics test, which contains fewer questions, making the process less stressful.

Since USCIS oversees the process standards, it also has discretion over determining whether naturalization applicants meet the necessary requirements. Therein lies the rub. Like USCIS, which makes available the Naturalization Test and Study Materials and Resources for Educational Programs, I gave students applying under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 the probable questions and answers. The amnesty program required 40 hours of classroom English instruction and a passing grade on the INA oral exam. When the students completed their 40-hour minimum, I quizzed them to evaluate their test-readiness. The majority failed. Accordingly, I didn’t sign the INA form which confirmed that the students had completed both the hours requirement and the English exam. Not long thereafter, I received a call from the local INA office ordering me to sign regardless of the students’ failings. The INA had heard, no doubt through activist groups like MALDEF, that I wasn’t signing off. When I explained that the students were unprepared, I was ordered nevertheless to approve all applicants.

The USCIS administrators pass nearly all citizenship candidates. The 2022 initial plus re-test pass rate was 95.7%, inconsistent not only with my experience but also Census Bureau findings. About half, 47%, of immigrant adults in the U.S. have limited English proficiency, meaning that they speak English less than very well. Reasons for examiners’ leniency could include compassion for candidates who have little if any test-taking experience, and none in a second language. Extreme nervousness could encourage sympathy. But most of all, failing citizenship-seekers in significant percentages would stir up a hornet’s nest among the immigration lobby and lead to vocal charges that the test is purposely too difficult because the administration is anti-immigration — a distraction that Trump doesn’t need.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

$100K Visa Fee Is Peanuts for Indentured Servitude

By Joe Guzzardi

President Donald Trump, on Sept. 19, issued his Proclamation entitled “Restrictions on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” that imposes a $100,000, one-time fee for most new non-immigrant visa petitions filed after September 21 and restricts the ability of certain other H-1B visa holders to enter the U.S. The Proclamation applies only to petitions that have not yet been filed and not to aliens who already hold current, valid H-1B visas. Per the order, employers must now provide proof of payment when filing H-1B petitions, with enforcement overseen by the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security. The administration’s goal is to end the visa’s abuse and thereby ensure that only the most highly skilled foreign workers are selected for entry while encouraging employers to prioritize Americans.

The industry’s immediate response to the Trump administration’s abrupt but forceful action was widespread confusion as some H-1B visa holders cancelled plans to re-enter or scheduled return flights to the U.S. before the proclamation’s Sept. 21 effective date. However, for the H-1B’s countless critics who have been crying foul since the Immigration Act of 1990 created the American job-killing visa, cautious optimism prevailed.

The fee has had the desired effect of dampening employer enthusiasm for cheaper foreign labor. Walmart, America’s largest private-sector employer with approximately 1.6 million workers on its domestic payroll — a total that includes about 2,400 H-1B visa holders — announced that it would temporarily suspend hiring new H-1Bs.

Four decades ago, Congress, craven employers, and pro-immigration expansionists sold the visa as a vital stopgap measure for companies that could not fill essential jobs with domestic workers. But their fairy-tale vision contrasted sharply with reality. Using the H-1B program to facilitate the offshoring of U.S. jobs and replace U.S. workers is the exact opposite of the program’s advertised purpose of helping employers fill temporary labor shortages with workers possessing skills that are in short supply domestically. If it were operating as intended, the program should, when necessary, bring in skilled workers to complement the U.S. labor force. While in some cases H-1B workers are skilled and benefit the U.S. economy, the data showed early in the program’s history that a large percentage of visas were used to undercut and replace U.S. workers to boost corporate profits.

Prospective IT employers were understandably shocked at the new $100,000 fee. Before the Proclamation, the H-1B petition fee could range from approximately $460 to about $4,460. But visa critics were pleased at the hike because for decades, independently published research reports from conservative and liberal think tanks proved that unscrupulous employers underpaid and overworked their H-1B labor force. Ten years ago, President Jimmy Carter’s labor secretary Ray Marshall called the H-1B “one of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems. The supporters argue that we have a shortage of college-educated workers. Well, there’s no evidence of that in the numbers…” During the decade since Marshall scorned the H-1B, the only significant change is that IT employers have gone on a dramatic firing spree, dismissing older, experienced native-born professionals while the annual lottery has admitted 85,000 new workers year after year. Some employers are exempt from the annual 85,000 cap, including universities and their affiliated nonprofit entities, nonprofit research organizations, and government research organizations. Because of the corporate exceptions, the arriving H-1B total far exceeds 85,000.

Of the top H-1B employers, many visas went to outsourcing firms — about one quarter of the annual 85,000 allotment. In 2024, at least 95,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off; layoffs hit a peak in 2023 when around 200,000 tech workers were fired. Today, the tech job market is horrible. Over 200 tech companies have laid off 91,000 employees, yet the visa lottery persists as if the market were tight.

The five domestic corporations with the most H-1Bs include Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Tata Computer Services, with J.P. Morgan narrowly missing the top tier. Most enjoyed excellent fiscal 2024 net earnings: Microsoft, $88 billion, a 22% increase over 2023; Meta, $62 billion, up 59% year-over-year; Amazon, $60 billion. All could easily afford $100,000. But now the question the corporate titans must answer is why pay $100,000 for a foreign-born employee when recent college graduates or fired, unemployed workers could be hired for $0.00 and without immigration procedural headaches. Well-paid, white-collar IT jobs should go to Americans, not Indians who comprise 73% of the total or Chinese nationals, 13%.

$100,000 is a bargain basement deal for employers. Since the visa is valid for three years and includes an automatic three-year renewal, the company will pay about $16,666 per year over a six-year term for an indentured worker. Instead of serving its original purpose, the H-1B visa is a vehicle that suppresses wages, erodes job security, and sidesteps fair employment practices. For years, as it has laid off hundreds of thousands of talented, experienced U.S. engineers, the tech industry has vigorously lobbied Congress, pleading that without its annual overseas worker allocation, their businesses would teeter on the brink of collapse. So, put up or shut up. If the H-1Bs are as imperative to corporate survival as its advocates claim, then the $100,000 is pocket change.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org