I am by birth American. I can vote and I qualify for in-state tuition rates in my state of residence. However, the current controversies over immigration policies have made me curious about the process that has afforded me, and millions of other American-born children of immigrants, the privileges of citizenship.
Recently, NBC5.com reported on a group of 202 young people ages 1 to 18 that gained automatic citizenship because their parents went through the U.S. immigration and naturalization process. Thanks to their parents, those young people can call themselves American. They will be spared the stigma of being green-card holders and relieved of the burden of going through the lengthy and costly process of becoming U.S. citizens as adults. Unlike their parents and mine, those 202 young people will never have to submit an application, interview with insensitive immigration officials, nor be subject to intense scrutiny by such officials in order to gain acceptance from the U.S. government. Like many of us, they simply woke up one morning and were American. I wonder how the rest of us would fare in the immigration and naturalization process. Would we qualify to become American citizens?
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), “before an applicant is admitted to citizenship, he or she must take the oath of allegiance…and sign a copy of the oath to acknowledge his or her willingness to accept certain obligations of United States citizenship.”
The citizenship oath includes something about “renouncing…all allegiance and fidelity” to any foreign government or its leaders and “perform[ing] work of national importance.”
Without ever having acknowledged this oath, many of us would generally fall within the grace of the USCIS inspectors. First, the meaning of fidelity has been lost to American pop culture, and we have a difficult time even reciting allegiance to the American flag, so the fear of allegiance to any other nation is moot. Secondly, the lofty notion of “perform[ing] work of national importance” can be as simple as contributing to the economy as an overspending, plastic-yielding consumer. Done and done. Before we start to get too confident in the process, let’s pay attention to the citizenship requirements and the evaluation process for applicants. Among several criteria, USCIS requires individuals applying for citizenship to have “the ability to read, write, and speak English; knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government; [and] good moral character.”
At least the requirement to read, write, and speak English is not tethered by a required level of proficiency. According to the National Commission on Adult Literacy, the U.S. ranked 14th among 22 countries in literacy performance. A National Adult Literacy Survey “found that 44 million Americans have extremely limited reading and quantitative skills.” This is not very American by USCIS standards.
Thankfully, the knowledge and understanding of U.S. history is now delivered to the public through several non-literary mediums. From movies about early American wars and TV dramas about the White House, to cartoons about Native Americans falling in love with English explorers, we have the historical requirement pretty much under control. For those that can read, it may have taken a while for classroom history books to correct inaccuracies, but I believe even those are much improved. As for the understanding of government, well, let’s just hope the next administration can make some sense out of that one.
The last listed requirement is a bit more complicated. Good-moral-what?! To become a citizen, USCIS has charged that my character, my essential qualities, my nature, my pattern of behavior must conform to the standards of morality set forth by the U. S. government. Except my government teacher in middle school never gave me the manual on U.S. standards for morality. USCIS describes good moral character by listing prohibited activities such as murder, theft, and fraud but gives no guidance as to qualifying activities.
If we look to our elected officials as a model, we might think that lying is acceptable under certain conditions; especially when those conditions include the use of flowery language and fancy political terms to omit truths and avoid accepting accountability. This must be where the mastery of the English language becomes beneficial. We might learn that, although stealing is prohibited, using deception to get money can be beneficial. And that steamrolling the weak is the only way to get necessary resources.
After reviewing the process and requirements of naturalization, I am thankful to have been born in this country. If we all had to qualify for citizenship according to the USCIS requirements, I’m afraid too many Americans would be lacking. There are now at least 202 more Americans that do not have to worry about this.