US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow said the existing citizenship test to get US citizenship is too easy and apart from the sweeping immigration overhaul that is being planned by the Donald Trump administration, they want to change the test as well. In an interview with the NYT, Edlow said the test is such that one can memorize the answers easily and pass the test.According to the existing test pattern, immigrants study 100 civics questions and then respond correctly to six out of 10 questions to pass that portion of the test. In the first term of the administration, the USCIS increased the number of questions and required applicants to respond correctly to 12 out of 20 questions. Edlow said the agency plans to return to a version of what they had at that time. “The test as it’s laid out right now, it’s not very difficult,” Edlow said. “It’s very easy to kind of memorize the answers. I don’t think we’re really comporting with the spirit of the law.”
‘It should be a net positive’
Edlow said granting citizenship should be a net positive. “And if we’re looking at the people that are coming over, that are especially coming over to advance certain economic agendas that we have and otherwise benefit the national interest — that’s absolutely what we need to be taking care of.”“I really do think that the way H-1B needs to be used, and this is one of my favorite phrases, is to, along with a lot of other parts of immigration, supplement, not supplant, US economy and US businesses and US workers,” Edlow said.
Trump, Vance on immigration
Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance sent a strong message to the tech companies, asking them to hire Americans. At an AI summit, Trump said the globalist mindset of the tech industry leaves Americans out of jobs while these jobs to to China and India. “Many of our largest tech companies have reaped the blessings of American freedom while building their factories in China, hiring workers in India and stashing profits in Ireland, you know that. All the while dismissing and even censoring their fellow citizens right here at home. Under President Trump, those days are over,” he said. “Winning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and long beyond Silicon Valley,” Trump said.JD Vance was harsher as he said he does not believe the ‘bulls**t’ story that these companies can’t find workers in America. “That displacement and that math worries me a bit. And what the president has said, he said very clearly: We want the very best and the brightest to make America their home. We want them to build great companies and so forth. But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.‘ That’s a bulls**t story,” JD said.
