Progressives working for President Joe Biden will kill off the December 2020 upgrade to the 2008 citizenship test in mid-April.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Servies agency has “determined the 2020 civics test development process, content … may inadvertently create potential barriers to the naturalization process,” according to a February 22 agency statement. “This action is consistent with [agency policy] … to eliminate barriers and make the process more accessible to all eligible individuals.”
The announcement covers roughly one million people per year, and it shows that Biden’s officials think “there is nothing exceptional about becoming a U.S. citizen,” said Rob Law, the director of regulatory affairs and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies.
The 2008 test is a low-bar test that requires little or nothing from migrants, said Law, who served as chief of the Office of Policy and Strategy at USCIS while the test was reviewed and approved by agency employees.
The progressives’ rejection of the 2020 test “is tied to their underlying enmity to [national sovereignty for] this country — they attack the value of citizenship because that helps them reach the philosophical goal of ‘We are only a global community,'” he said.
The 2008 test is a simple memory test that is easy to pass, in part, because all of the questions and answers are available online, he said. “It does not require any understanding,” he added.
The 2008 test is descended from the crude test offered to illegals after the 1986 amnesty. That crude 1986 test gradually replaced the prior practice of asking would-be citizens to explain sections from a government-printed civics and history handbook, he said.
The 2020 test is designed to help new migrants understand how the U.S. constitution and government work, he said. “The 2020 test was structured in the ‘Why?” mode,” he said, adding:
Why is our system this way? — as opposed to [2008 question such as] “How many senators do you have?” … The goal was not to make it impossible to pass, but to make the test more meaningful and to require knowledge of the principles of American society.
For example, question 15 in the 2020 test preparation document asks; “There are three branches of government. Why?”
The provided answers say: “So one part does not become too powerful. Checks and balances. Separation of powers.
Question 37 asks: “The President of the United States can serve only two terms. Why?”
The provided answers are: “(Because of) the 22nd Amendment. To keep the president from becoming too powerful.”
In the 2020 oral test, would-be citizens have to correctly answer 12 of 20 offered questions from the study guidebook of 128 questions, including 19 “Why?” questions.
In contrast, in the 2008 oral test, migrants must answer correctly just six of 12 questions drawn from the 100 questions in the 2008 study guide, which includes just four “Why?” questions.
The questions in the 2008 test include: “In what month do we vote for President?” The answer was: “November.”
Many of the 2008 questions are factoid-like questions and answers that provide little guidance to the political power granted by migrant citizenship. They included “What are the two major parties in the United States? … Name one right only for United States citizens … How old do citizens have to be to vote for President? … Who was the first President?”
Biden’s officials tried to justify their return to the 2008 test, but their objections are bogus, Law said, adding:
It is an obsession of the Biden political appointees to just do away with anything that happened under the Trump administration — that’s what it seems to be. … It is truly baffling. If they’d actually spoken to the career officials that did this [test development] process, they would have learned that it is not an obstacle — to use their term — for anyone to naturalize. … Frankly, to me, this was just something done out of spite, and while the Biden administration may think that it is a win against the Trump appointees, all it really is is a slap in the face to the career officials that worked diligently for two years.
However, Biden’s officials have been broadcasting their desire to refocus the DHS and USCIS on helping migrants — not on aiding the 300 million Americans who have a right to their own national labor market and homeland.
On February 19, for example, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ deputies posted a tweet offering support to migrants illegally working in the United States, and to migrants who may wish to live in the United States:
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.