A week before the US government plans to start a redesigned civics test as part of the naturalization process, a senior immigration official sought on Tuesday to calm nervous immigrants and critics who say the new exam will be more challenging than the current one.
“It’s not harder than the current exam,” said Alfonso Aguilar, chief of the citizenship office at Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that devises and administers the test. “In fact, for some, it may be easier.”
At the crux of the debate is a list of 100 questions that applicants will have to study to prepare for the new test, which will take effect next Wednesday.
During the naturalization interview, an immigration officer will ask the applicant 10 of the questions spanning a range of difficulty. The applicant must correctly answer six questions to pass that portion of the interview.
Aguilar said that in a pilot study of the new questions, 92 percent of participants passed the test on their first attempt, while an average of 85 percent of all applicants pass the current test on their first attempt.
Applicants are given two chances to pass the test. Those who fail twice can reapply for naturalization immediately.
With the test’s redesign, the first since 1986, immigration officials sought to move away from simple trivia and to emphasize basic concepts of US history and the structure of US government and democracy.
Some questions will require a more sophisticated understanding of the US, according to officials and immigrant advocates.
The redesign is part of the US President George W. Bush administration’s efforts to improve immigrant assimilation, Aguilar said.
“This is not a treatise in American history and government, but we try in 100 questions and answers to summarize the basic concepts of American democracy,” he said in a telephone interview, one of a series of interviews he is conducting this week with news media in New York, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“We include what is absolutely necessary for somebody to understand what America is,” he said.
Some immigrant advocacy groups have said the test is more abstract and therefore more difficult and will unnecessarily impede some legal residents from obtaining citizenship. Some groups have even reported that fear of a harder test has spurred immigrants to file their naturalization applications before next Wednesday, which would qualify them to take the current test.
Youngsook Na, senior program associate at the Young Korean American Service and Education Center in Flushing, New York City, said that attendance at the organization’s weekly naturalization clinic had doubled in recent weeks as immigrants rushed to file their documents.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS