The Biden Administration announced changes to the U.S. citizenship test that would make it easier for illegal migrants to become legally part of the country.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services said the changes will make the English-speaking portion of the test easier, as well as reduce the difficulty of the civics section.
The naturalization exam is a crucial part of becoming a citizen, which makes or breaks the outcome for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The civics portion will be revised to become a multiple-choice format with each question having four options, as opposed to the previous “fill-in-the-blank” test where candidates have to answer a question from memory.
“Primarily, this is about responding to suggestions from the wider community that we’ve received over the past couple of years and making it fairer,” a USCIS official told CNN.
The new test will go through a trial run where it will enter a five-month trial period with about 1,500 participants in 2023.
This is the latest effort for the Biden Administration to remove barriers to allowing illegal migrants into the country. He curtailed any efforts former President Trump made while in office
Only 12 days after President Joe Biden took office, he signed an executive order that directs government agencies to “identify [and remove] barriers that impede access to immigration benefits.”
In November 2020, Trump declared a new syllabus for the naturalization test, which raised the pass threshold to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly, compared to 10.
Officials at the time claimed that the test would “provide the applicant with more opportunities to learn about the United States as part of the test preparation process.”
However, the Biden Administration rescinded Trump’s version of the test just months after he left office.