Trump’s ‘Harder’ Citizenship Test

Basic civics isn’t much to ask—for U.S. high-school grads too.

What kind of an exam provides all the questions in advance and then accepts 60% as a passing grade? That’s the U.S. citizenship civics test. Last week the Trump Administration moved to make the exam “harder,” as the news reports put it, but not much. While we’re at it, maybe every state could make it mandatory for high-schoolers to pass.

Trump’s ‘Harder’ Citizenship Test

The current test has 100 possible questions. Immigrants seeking citizenship are orally asked 10 and must get six correct. Much of this is elementary: “Who was the first President?” “Name one branch or part of the government.” “What is freedom of religion?” “How many U.S. Senators are there?” “What ocean is on the East Coast of the United States?”

Some questions require a bit more civics schooling. Name one writer of the Federalist Papers. “How many amendments does the Constitution have?” Twelfth graders preparing to graduate ought to be able to pass, even if they get a couple questions wrong or forget who was President during World War I.

The government is now bringing back a revised test that was briefly implemented under President Trump in 2020 before being reversed by President Biden. That question list runs to 128. Passing requires 12 right answers out of 20, still 60%. Added queries include the meaning of “E Pluribus Unum” and one thing for which Alexander Hamilton is famous. (No, not his contributions to musical theater.) Other questions are recast to take fuller answers: “Name the three branches of government.”

Federal law says candidates for naturalization should demonstrate basic English literacy, as well as an “understanding of the fundamentals of the history, and of the principles and form of government, of the United States.” Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has argued the current civics test is “just too easy” and doesn’t reflect the spirit of what Congress wanted.

Citizenship is a serious obligation, and newcomers invited to choose the next U.S. Senator should have a firm grasp of—well, how many Senators there are, for one thing, and who signs or vetoes bills, what the “rule of law” means, and that “communism” was America’s concern during the Cold War. If native-born 18-year-olds able to vote can’t pass this test, for heaven’s sake, fix that too.