President Donald Trump’s administration continues its crackdown on immigration with a series of planned changes to the naturalization test that will make it much harder to become an American citizen, CNN reports.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced last year that it would make revisions to the test, which was last changed in 2009. CNN notes that these changes include additional questions on civics topics and altering the passing score. Earlier this year, the Trump administration almost doubled the cost of an online naturalization application, raising it from $640 to $1,160, a move that came at the same time as a series of policies aimed at lowering immigration.
"It's not unprecedented to change the questions ... what stands out to me is once again a desire to slow down the process and require more from immigrants," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, who is policy counsel for the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group the American Immigration Council, told CNN.
"This administration seems locked into an endless cycle of making the process more difficult and inevitably, discouraging more and more people from seeking citizenship and legal immigration benefits," he added.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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