In response to an executive order by President Trump, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (US-CIS) updated the civics test that prospective US citizens must pass to become naturalized.
It was proposed during the first Trump administration in 2020, but it came into effect on Sept. 18, 2025. In the updated version of the civics test, the question pool was expanded from 100 to 128 in the 2025 update.
Up to twenty questions can be asked instead of the previous ten. Those taking the test are required to answer at least twelve questions correctly to pass instead of the six that were required in the past.
The criteria to pass remains at 60%. The US-CIS also expanded online study tools in the update. In the context of polarizing conflicts over immigration, US citizens need to pay attention to their naturalization system.
Though these changes may seem ambivalent or even beneficial to test takers at first glance, in reality they serve to make the test more difficult.
The language to describe the updates on the USCIS website also reveals an alarming revival of early twentieth-century beliefs surrounding immigration.
It is important that any changes to USCIS procedures be questioned due to discourse around immigration becoming more volatile and anti-immigrant attitudes gaining popularity again.
Illinois Wesleyan history professor April Schultz said that anti-immigrant sentiments are “stoked by leaders looking to gain advantage in elections or in legislative policy decisions, perpetuating and exacerbating dangerous stereotypes with little basis in reality.”
She also said that the term “alien,” used to describe immigrants, had declined in the past but has come back into strong use during the Trump administration.
In the Federal Register’s “Notice of Implementation of 2025 Naturalization Civics Test,” the word “alien” is used 49 times to describe immigrants.
This dehumanizing language should be left in the past as it only fuels hate and “othering.”
The website also said that the “demonstration of English and civics knowledge is essential to showing an alien’s commitment to fulfill the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship and to actively assimilate into American society.”
When discussing this with Professor Schultz, she said, “Taking a test on American civics does not equal assimilation.”
But Americans should also be asking themselves whether full assimilation is truly important in a nation with a rich history of cultural exchange.
Aside from the harmful language of the US-CIS, the civics test is also an example of the double standards set for prospective citizens.
I asked IWU students some of the questions on the civics test to gauge the difficulty of the test.
Possible questions include the succession order of power for the executive branch, the functions of Congress, names of cabinet-level positions, the day federal income tax forms are due and various U.S. history questions spanning the country’s entire history.
Most students successfully answered the questions asked of them, but not without considerable effort. It was clear that these questions did not come easy.
USCIS should not require prospective citizens to take a test on American civics and history when most Americans—an estimated 60%—cannot pass the test and do not have a basic understanding of their history.
In 2021, during the Biden administration, the updates to the civics test were rejected. At that time USCIS stated the changes would “inadvertently create potential barriers to the naturalization process.”
Certainly, the 2025 test does “create barriers”to citizenship, but it does not do so “inadvertently.” The changes to the civics test are a quieter form of limiting immigration than ICE agents on the streets.
But nonetheless an example of nativism, or the prioritization of native-born interests rather than immigrants, characterized by immigration restrictions and fear of foreign influences.
The Trump administration has made it clear that it does not support immigration and wishes to repress it in any way possible, even when that includes unlawfully detaining them.
The 2025 civics test required for naturalization does not benefit immigrants, and more importantly, it reflects the return to nativist sentiments and divisive narratives.
