Naturalization Integrity

Executive summary

Naturalization is how immigrants become Americans. Roughly 800,000 to 900,000 people have taken the Oath of Allegiance in a typical recent year. The law already asks a great deal of them — years of lawful residence, good moral character, a civics and English test, and an oath renouncing foreign allegiance. NCI’s position is that this threshold should mean something: the tests should reflect a real command of English and of how American self-government works; the oath’s renunciation of foreign allegiance should be taken seriously; and the process should prize integrity over speed, so that citizenship is conferred carefully rather than in a rush.

We hold, with equal conviction, that a meaningful threshold is not a punitive one. The long-standing accommodations for the elderly and the disabled are sound and should be preserved. Our aim is to strengthen what citizenship requires without erecting gratuitous barriers to those who genuinely earn it. This paper completes a trilogy with our work on birthright citizenship and citizenship and the franchise: each asks what full membership in the American political community should require.

This is a work of policy analysis and advocacy. We present the strongest version of the opposing case, and we distinguish what the sources establish from what we conclude.

Background

Federal law sets the requirements to naturalize. In brief, an applicant must generally be a lawful permanent resident for five years (three if married to and living with a U.S. citizen), show continuous residence and physical presence, demonstrate good moral character, be attached to the principles of the Constitution, show an ability to read, write, and speak English, and pass a test of U.S. history and civics. The process ends with the Oath of Allegiance, in which the new citizen renounces “all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty,” pledges to support and defend the Constitution, and agrees to bear arms or perform service when required by law (with statutory accommodations for qualifying religious objectors, who may pledge noncombatant or civilian service instead).

Two features of the current system frame the debate:

• The civics test. For applications filed on or after October 20, 2025, USCIS administers the 2025 civics test: twenty questions drawn from a bank of one hundred twenty-eight, with twelve correct answers to pass. Applicants who filed earlier take the 2008 test (ten questions from one hundred; six to pass). The test has changed before — a 2020 revision was rescinded in 2021 — so its content and difficulty are live policy questions, not fixed features.
• English and civics exemptions. Long-standing rules exempt certain older, long-resident applicants from the English requirement; they still take the civics test, but may do so in the language of their choice. A narrower group — applicants 65 or older with at least 20 years of permanent residence — is given special consideration in the form of a shorter study list. Separate accommodations exist for applicants with qualifying medical disabilities.

Analysis

Citizenship should be a real threshold

The requirements exist because citizenship is not merely a legal status but membership in a self-governing people. A test that can be passed with minimal preparation, or an oath treated as a formality, quietly lowers what membership asks. NCI’s view is that the civics and English standards should reflect a genuine, functional command — enough history and constitutional understanding to participate in self-government, and enough English to do so without an intermediary. Strengthening the standard is not about failing more applicants; it is about making the credential mean what it says.

The oath should be honest

The Oath of Allegiance already requires renouncing foreign allegiance. In practice the United States tolerates dual citizenship, and the renunciation is rarely given effect. We think the words of the oath should carry weight: a person who swears to transfer their political allegiance to the United States is making a real commitment, and public policy should reflect that seriousness rather than treat the sentence as ceremonial. Reasonable people differ on how far to press this; our point is that the oath is a promise, not a recitation.

Integrity over speed

Naturalization decisions should be driven by careful adjudication — background checks, verification of eligibility, honest assessment of good moral character — not by throughput targets or the political calendar. Where the Supreme Court has addressed the back end of this system — in Maslenjak v. United States (2017), a prosecution under the criminal denaturalization statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a), where conviction strips citizenship automatically — it held that the government must prove the false statement was material to obtaining citizenship; an immaterial misstatement cannot support the conviction. That is the right balance: rigorous at the front door, and fair before anyone is stripped of what they lawfully earned.

What we propose

• A meaningful civics and English standard — a test that reflects real functional knowledge, with published, transparent content so applicants can prepare. The 2025 civics test moved in this direction by roughly doubling the number of questions asked; we support consolidating that change and pairing it with an equally serious English standard.
• An honest oath — treat the renunciation of foreign allegiance as a genuine commitment, and align policy with the promise the oath makes.
• Integrity over speed — resource careful adjudication and honest good-moral-character review; do not let ceremony timing or backlogs drive the decision to confer citizenship.
• Preserve humane exemptions — keep the accommodations for elderly, long-resident, and disabled applicants that recognize genuine hardship.

Counterarguments

We take the opposing case seriously.

• The system is already rigorous. Applicants clear years of residence, background checks, and a test; naturalized citizens have high rates of civic participation and low crime rates. A harder standard may fix a problem that does not exist.
• A tougher test could exclude worthy people. Refugees, the elderly, and the traumatized may struggle with a demanding English or civics exam even as they become devoted citizens — which is exactly why the exemptions exist.
• Dual citizenship is normal. Most of the world tolerates dual nationality; pressing the oath’s renunciation could be impractical, could force painful choices, and yields little practical benefit.
• Slower processing has costs. Backlogs leave people in limbo for years and can discourage eligible residents from naturalizing at all.

NCI’s response, offered as our judgment: we favor a standard that is more meaningful, not merely harder — transparent content, honest adjudication, and an oath that means what it says — while keeping every accommodation that reflects real hardship. On dual citizenship, we do not propose stripping anyone’s status; we propose taking the oath’s commitment seriously in how citizenship’s obligations are understood. Integrity and humaneness are not in tension; a system can be both careful and fair.

Sources

• Immigration and Nationality Act §§ 312, 316, 337 (8 U.S.C. §§ 1423, 1427, 1448) — English/civics, residence and good moral character, and the Oath of Allegiance.
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, civics test and study materials; English and medical-disability exemptions (Form N-648).
• USCIS, 2025 naturalization civics test announcement and study materials — 20 questions drawn from a bank of 128, 12 correct to pass, for applications filed on or after October 20, 2025 (the 2008 test applies to earlier filings).
• Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U.S. 335 (2017) — materiality standard for criminal denaturalization under 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a).

Full primary texts are collected in the Research Library.

Further reading

• Birthright Citizenship and the Jurisdiction Requirement
• Citizenship and the Franchise
• The Citizenship Primer