Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow said this week that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering changes to the test to become a US citizen.
Earlier, it was reported that the administration was planning to change the visa system for skilled foreign workers by doing away with the H1-B visa lottery system.
US citizenship test: What’s expected?
Joseph Edlow, the director of USCIS, told the New York Times on Thursday that the administration wanted to change the naturalisation test required by prospective US citizens.
As of now, immigrants study 100 civics questions and then must respond correctly to six out of 10 questions to pass that portion of the test.
During the first Trump administration, the agency 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 that test soon, the NYT reported.
But why does Edlow want to change the citizenship test?
In an interview with The New York Times, Joseph Edlow said the test to become a US citizen was too easy and should change.
“The test as it’s laid out right now, it’s not very difficult,” Edlow said on Thursday, adding. “It’s very easy to kind of memorise the answers. I don’t think we’re really comporting with the spirit of the law.”
Edlow’s proposed changes would have to be approved through the federal government’s rule-making process.
H-1B visa program: What changes?
The Donald Trump administration is reportedly planning to revamp the H1-B visa lottery system, aiming to replace it with a more weighted and wage-linked selection process.
The proposed changes aim to give preference to certain applicants based on additional criteria—potentially including wages—thereby benefiting highly-skilled and higher-paid professionals.
Currently, the system is quite simple. Applicants who are eligible for H1-B visa submit their applications, and a computer-run lottery randomly selects the recipients.
Each year, about 85,000 H-1B visas are issued, including 20,000 reserved for individuals holding a Master’s degree or higher from a US university.
On January 8, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule to modify its process for selecting H-1B petitions when registrations surpass the annual limit of 85,000.
So, what changes does the administration propose? As per Forbes, in the final rule in 2021, DHS described the new selection process as:
“The USCIS will rank and select the petitions received on the basis of the highest Occupational Employment Statistics wage level that the proffered wage equals or exceeds for the relevant Standard Occupational Classification code in the area of intended employment, beginning with OES wage level IV and proceeding in descending order with OES wage levels III, II, and I.”
A study by the Institute for Progress earlier this year found, as reported by the Hindustan Times, that if higher salaries were given priority instead of using a random lottery, the average salary of an H-1B visa holder could rise from around $106,000 to $172,000.
That would likely make things much harder for outsourcing firms who rely on hiring large numbers of lower-wage workers, but could be a big plus for researchers, PhD holders, and senior-level tech professionals, the report added.
Criticism
Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official, said changing the H1-B process to favour higher-wage earners was misguided.
“Like it or not, the H-1B program is the main way that US companies can hire the best and brightest international graduates of US universities, and Congress never allowed DHS to put its thumb on the scale based on salary,” he said.
Regarding the plan to change the H-1B visa program for foreign workers, it has been the subject of debate within the Republican Party. Edlow said it should favour companies that plan to pay foreign workers higher wages.
the proposed changes to the system could alleviate criticism from those in the right wing of the Republican Party who say the program attracts workers willing to accept lower salaries than American workers.
This week, US Vice President JD Vance had criticised companies that lay off their own employees and then hire foreign workers.
But some of Trump’s most prominent backers in the tech industry said they rely on the H-1B visa program because they can’t find enough qualified American workers.
Edlow was quoted by NYT as saying, “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.”