CitizenshipYes

The Biden Administration announced that it is returning to the citizenship test that was in force from 2008 until December 2020.
The Trump test increased the number of questions for applicants need to study, and doubled the number of questions applicants had to answer correctly.

The changes take effect March 1, 2021.

Some USCIS officers are very interested in your life. If they want to know about you, they have lots of resources to help them find out. Most of these resources are electronic: to send investigators to your home or work normally requires the cooperation of another DHS agency U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). However, without little effort or anyone’s help the officer interviewing you should have access to essentially all of your immigration file, your record in immigration, customs and FBI criminal record databases. With just a little effort, your file can be referred to USCIS’s Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) for much more thorough research. DHS is the biggest subscriber to online services that aggregate the information found in the big 3 credit reporting services and public records (like marriage, divorce, and death records, car registrations, lawsuits, liens and real estate transactions) nationwide. The services contain a vast amount of information about you, and they can be the starting point for even more far-reaching investigations.

And USCIS knows all about Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and other online sites, as this FDNS memo recently released in response to a Freedom of Information request by a privacy right group shows. “Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of “friends” link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don’t even know. This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities.” (You can see the memo here.) So that friend request from someone you don’t quite recognize may be from a USCIS examiner.

Remember what your friends and your mother told you about being careful about what you post online. Hold those narcissistic tendencies to share white lies, exaggerated feelings about disputes with your spouse or partner, wild or unfaithful conduct on vacation, etc. in check.

Don’t underestimate what Immigration knows about you. If you and your spouse separated but worked things out, be ready to prove it, not to hide it. (This advice is even truer if you didn’t work it out. Never hide things like children born out of wedlock, arrests that were thrown out, etc.) If your friends signed you up to a Facebook group for boy-man love or spouse-swapping, don’t be surprised if USCIS knows. Use caution, not just common sense, in your online privacy settings, don’t take friend requests from strangers, and hire a lawyer and tell your lawyer the truth before you make a USCIS application.

Many people were afraid that the new citizenship test was an effort to make it harder to get citizenship. Our experience contradicts those fears. The 100-question test may require a little more effort to study for, but the final results are as good as or better than those our clients got on the old test. The new writing requirements seem to be easier: the sentences tend to be brief, and to use words on the vocabulary list that USCIS provides. The sentences for reading are also brief and use words on the list. (The reading requirement has never been as big an obstacle as the writing requirement.)

So please, do not hesitate to apply for citizenship based on fear of the test. Right now, processing times are low based on USCIS being overstaffed in most parts of the country. If you meet the other requirements, this may be a good time for you to apply.

Starting January 22, 2009, applications will be sent to two regional lockbox facilities. Applicants in the west, Rocky Mountain states and midwest will send their applications to Arizona. Applicants from the eastern and southern US will send their applications to Texas.

West, Mountain West, Midwest

If You Reside In: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Territory of Guam, or Northern Mariana Islands, file your N-400 with:

Mail address:

USCIS Lockbox Facility
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
P.O. Box 21251
Phoenix, AZ 85036

Address for overnight mail services:

USCIS, Attn: N-400
1820 E. Skyharbor Circle S. Floor 1
Phoenix, AZ 85036

East, South

If You Reside In: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, or U.S. Virgin Islands, file your N-400 with:

Mail address:

USCIS Lockbox Facility
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
P.O. Box 299026
Lewisville, TX 75029

Address for overnight mail services:

USCIS, Attn: N-400
12501 S. State Hwy 121, Bldg. 4
Lewisville, TX 75067

Military applicants will continue to file their applications with the USCIS Nebraska Service Center.

Delays in processing naturalization cases have not changed markedly in the last couple of months. Average waiting times remain in the 10-12 month range. However, the outlook for pending and newly filed cases is a little better, as USCIS hires more staff and devotes more resources to clearing its backlog. In the year ending September 30, 2008, USCIS completed 1,171,140 naturalization applications, up from about 700,000 in the previous year.

The longest big-city waiting times are in Los Angeles (14.2 months) and Orlando. At the other end of the spectrum, a handful of smaller cities have wait times under 6 months. View the list of Wait Times by Field Office.

If you file your citizenship application on or after October 1, 2008 you will be given the new citizenship test. Applicants whose applications are filed prior to that date can choose to take the old or new tests if their interviews are held prior to October 1, 2009. After that date everyone will use the new test.

USCIS has announced that average processing times for naturalization applications are now 10-12 months. This is a reduction of about six months from this time last year when application backlogs peaked as USCIS dramatically increased fees for application processing. However, the average processing still falls well short of the 6 month goal. Many offices now have predicted processing times of under 6 months. Only 3 – Charlotte, Hartford and New Orleans – report times over 14 months.

It is very important to list all of your children, young or old, whether they live with you or not, anywhere in the world. Don’t think that older children or ex-spouses from long ago “don’t count.” They do. If there are any doubtful situations – a former marriage or divorce that may not have been legal in some way, a child put up for adoption or adopted informally – list and explain in writing what happened and know before you apply if the problem could affect your, your child’s or spouse’s application or status.

Many problems can result if you fail to do this. Even if there is no problem other than bad memory or sloppy form-filling on your part, the Immigration officer may decide that you are dishonest and disqualify you on moral character grounds. If there is a more serious doubt or problem like an invalid divorce or adoption, you or a relative might end up in deportation accused of having gotten your green card incorrectly.

Be careful, be correct, and seriously consider using a lawyer to help you prepare your application.

Most of us think about arrests as a dramatic event involving handcuffs and going to jail, but that’s often not the case. A better rule of thumb: if you had to go to court, you were arrested. Even if the prosecutor threw out the charge or a judge dismissed the charge and told you that you can answer no when asked if you were ever arrested Immigration still requires you to list the arrest and how the case was decided on Form N-400. Even more serious: charges dismissed by some state courts are considered convictions for immigration purposes.

If you ever had to go to court, get a certified copy of the disposition of your case and consult a lawyer before you apply for citizenship.

You need to list all the trips you have taken outside the US since you became a permanent resident. Saving your passport will let you track all those dates. Immigration looks at the dates to make sure you meet the residence requirements for citizenship and that you did not interrupt your residence for citizenship purposes or give it up. Saving your old passports is far better than guessing the dates of your trips. If your country of citizenship keeps your old passport when you get a new one, take a copy the pages of your old passport before you replace it.