Trump administration to extra closely scrutinize
The Trump administration is signaling it’ll extra closely scrutinize functions filed by authorized immigrants in search of American citizenship, in its newest effort to tighten entry to U.S. immigration advantages.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers, the federal company overseeing the nation’s authorized immigration system, instructed officers on Friday to contemplate extra elements when figuring out whether or not immigrants making use of for U.S. citizenship have a “good ethical character.”
Sometimes, authorized immigrants with U.S. everlasting residency, also referred to as a inexperienced card, can apply for naturalized American citizenship after a 3- or 5-year interval, relying on their case. Demonstrating “an excellent ethical character” has lengthy been one of many necessities in U.S. immigration legislation for American citizenship, alongside passing English and civics assessments.
For many years, beneath Republican and Democratic administrations, the “good ethical character” evaluation has typically been glad if candidates haven’t any of the felony offenses or disqualifying conduct outlined in U.S. immigration legislation. These disqualifying elements vary from violent crimes like homicide and aggravated felonies to drug offenses and being a “routine drunkard.”
However a coverage issued Friday by USCIS expands the “good ethical character” evaluation, saying that willpower should contain “greater than a cursory mechanical assessment centered on the absence of wrongdoing.” As a substitute, the assessment, the company informed its officers, needs to be “a holistic evaluation of an alien’s habits, adherence to societal norms, and constructive contributions that affirmatively reveal good ethical character.”
The directive orders officers to position a “higher emphasis” on candidates’ “constructive attributes and contributions,” itemizing group involvement, household caregiving and ties, academic attainment, “steady and lawful” employment, the size of time spent within the U.S., and paying taxes as a few of these elements.
The memo additionally mandates “higher scrutiny” of things that present candidates lack a “good ethical character,” past the crimes and disqualifying conduct detailed in U.S. immigration legislation.
These elements, the coverage mentioned, embody “acts which are opposite to the common habits of residents within the jurisdiction the place aliens reside,” together with actions which are “technically lawful” but in addition “inconsistent with civic accountability inside the group.” USCIS listed “reckless or routine site visitors infractions, or harassment or aggressive solicitation” as a few of these actions.
Lastly, the brand new USCIS coverage instructs officers to weigh elements that would present that candidates who’ve engaged in wrongdoing have rehabilitated, similar to complying with probation, paying overdue taxes or baby assist and receiving letters of assist from their group.
Over the previous decade, the U.S. authorities has naturalized between 600,000 and 1 million immigrants as residents yearly, USCIS figures present.
In an announcement to CBS Information, USCIS chief spokesman Matthew Tragesser mentioned the directive is one other effort by President Trump’s administration to “restore integrity” to the U.S. immigration system.
“U.S. citizenship is the gold commonplace of citizenship — it ought to solely be supplied to the world’s better of the very best,” Tragesser added. “At present, USCIS is including a brand new ingredient to the naturalization course of that ensures America’s latest residents not solely embrace America’s tradition, historical past, and language however who additionally reveal Good Ethical Character.”
Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS official through the Biden administration, advised the Trump administration’s coverage is designed to scare authorized immigrants from making use of for American citizenship and require officers to place their “thumb on the dimensions” to search out extra causes to disclaim functions.
“They’re making an attempt to extend the grounds for denial of U.S. citizenship by sort of torturing the definition of excellent ethical character to embody extraordinarily innocent habits,” Rand mentioned, citing the coverage’s reference to site visitors infractions.
Whereas the Trump administration has launched a extremely seen crackdown on unlawful immigration by deploying hundreds of troops to the southern border, increasing immigration raids throughout the nation, and fast-tracking deportations of these within the U.S. illegally, it has concurrently moved to limit authorized immigration, with much less fanfare.
The Trump administration has just about shut down refugee admissions, terminated Biden-era applications that allowed migrants to enter the U.S. legally, restricted visas for sure international locations and carried out aggressive vetting procedures for authorized immigration advantages. These efforts embody expanded vetting of social media exercise of authorized immigrants and stricter screening necessities for some functions.
