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Speaker 1: What does it mean to be a US citizen?

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Speaker 2: The Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause is under scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

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Speaker 3: If you're born here in the United States, then you are,

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Speaker 3: in fact an American citizen.

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Speaker 1: The fundamental question of who gets US citizenship is in

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Speaker 1: fact evolving. On President Trump's first day in office, he

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Speaker 1: issued an executive order to end that right for the

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Speaker 1: children of people who are in the US illegally. Earlier

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Speaker 1: this year, we brought you a story about the Trump

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Speaker 1: Administration's efforts to end birthright citizenship.

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Speaker 4: If this injunction wasn't maintained or they attempted to lift it,

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Speaker 4: these women would have stateless children.

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Speaker 1: Today on Latino USA, we're going to bring you an

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Speaker 1: episode from our friends at ELIST, the NPR station in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. This story looks at another side of the

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Speaker 1: citizenship issue, new naturalization guidelines for people hoping to become

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Speaker 1: US citizens. This is something that has become even more

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Speaker 1: difficult under the Trump administration. So we're going to play

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Speaker 1: some of the episode from the show In Perfect Paradise,

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Speaker 1: The show's host Nae la Moreno is going to speak

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Speaker 1: with reporter Julia Rajas about the changes playing out inside

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Speaker 1: a citizenship prep class at Pasadena City College.

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Speaker 3: So, Julia, I'm curious, how did you start looking into

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Speaker 3: this story and what made you decide to explore a

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Speaker 3: citizenship class.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So earlier this summer, our organization got a message from

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Speaker 4: a woman named Melissa Michaelson. She's an associate professor at

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Speaker 4: Pasadena City College and she also happens to be a

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Speaker 4: loyal LAS reader and listener, and she wrote in saying,

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Speaker 4: you know, right now, it feels very hard to be

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Speaker 4: teaching students from other countries who want to be citizens.

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Speaker 4: She said she didn't even feel comfortable recommending that they

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Speaker 4: make an appointment for their citizenship exams because she was

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Speaker 4: scared that ice might be there waiting for them.

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Speaker 3: And who are typically the people who take Michaelson's class

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Speaker 3: at Pasadena City College aka PCC.

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Speaker 4: They're all adults raging in age, so some of them

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Speaker 4: could be like in their like early twenties, some of

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Speaker 4: them are like almost in their sixties. And they tend

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Speaker 4: to come from countries like China, Russia, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand,

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Speaker 4: and many parts of Latin America. One of the things

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Speaker 4: we talked about is how some of those countries don't

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Speaker 4: have democratic governments. So for some students, learning about things

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Speaker 4: like the right to vote for public officials and the

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Speaker 4: ability to wag in on issues is all new.

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Speaker 2: This is democracy, So the power is within them. We

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Speaker 2: just need to harness it and power in numbers and

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Speaker 2: know your rights, know what to do, know your history,

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Speaker 2: know what happened before, build upon that, change it and

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Speaker 2: good luck. That's that's what I hope more students get

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Speaker 2: out of it, on top of becoming an American. Set

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Speaker 2: of them.

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Speaker 3: Julia, what do we know about who takes this test

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Speaker 3: on a wider scale?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So we have some data from the twenty twenty

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Speaker 4: four fiscal year. That's the last full year of the

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Speaker 4: Biden administration, and in that year, the country welcomed more

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Speaker 4: than eight hundred eighteen thousand new citizens. And what I

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Speaker 4: learned is that California is home to nearly one in

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Speaker 4: five of people seeking citizenships, about eighteen percent, and the

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Speaker 4: LA area is actually one of the most popular areas

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Speaker 4: of residency, behind New York and Miami. The naturalization process

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Speaker 4: has always involved many steps, but there are three big

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Speaker 4: basic parts. One is that students have to demonstrate that

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Speaker 4: they can read, write, and speak in English. They also

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Speaker 4: have to pass a civics test that delves into US

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Speaker 4: history and how our government functions. And then they have

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Speaker 4: to clear like a big background check where the US

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Speaker 4: Citizenship and Immigration Services determines whether they are fit to

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Speaker 4: be citizens, and the Trump administration has introduced a number

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Speaker 4: of changes to that process in recent months. In the past,

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Speaker 4: applicants would just submit this like fourteen page application that

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Speaker 4: asked a bunch of questions like have you ever you know,

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Speaker 4: participated or assisted with things like killing or trying to

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Speaker 4: kill anyone else? Or have you prevented someone from practicing

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Speaker 4: their religion? Things like this that determine someone's moral character.

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Speaker 4: But that's gonna change. Being forward and to learn more

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Speaker 4: about these changes and how they're impacting others, I spoke

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Speaker 4: with Julie Mitchell. She is the legal director at the

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Speaker 4: Central American Resource Center and the center also provides citizenship classes.

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Speaker 4: She noted that the changes to a test were announced

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Speaker 4: in September of this year, which didn't really give educators

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Speaker 4: a whole lot of time to adjust their lesson plans.

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Speaker 5: So we're going to have citizenship teachers across the country

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Speaker 5: kind of trying to scramble to be able to quickly

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Speaker 5: change developed teaching materials to a apps to a new.

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Speaker 3: Tast and tell us about the naturalization test, like what

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Speaker 3: kinds of questions are usually on it?

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Speaker 4: The questions that are usually on it are things like

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Speaker 4: what does the Bill of Rights protect? Or like what

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Speaker 4: part of the federal government rights laws? Questions that some

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Speaker 4: of us might or might not know the answers too.

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Speaker 4: But starting this week, actually students will have to be

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Speaker 4: prepared to answer more questions correctly during their Civics test,

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Speaker 4: and they will be expected to learn the answers to

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Speaker 4: more questions too, so to explain what that I mean.

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Speaker 1: It's like.

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Speaker 4: In the past, students had to learn the answers to

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Speaker 4: the bank of one hundred questions, and then to pass

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Speaker 4: their tests, they had to answer six out of ten

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Speaker 4: questions correctly like verbally. But moving forward, they have to

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Speaker 4: know the answers to one hundred and twenty eight questions

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Speaker 4: and they'll have to answer twelve out of twenty questions correctly.

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Speaker 4: The federal government has also announced that moving forward, when

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Speaker 4: federal officials make determinations about a candidate's quote unquote good

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Speaker 4: moral character, your absence of bad behavior is no longer enough.

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Speaker 4: They're going to have to actually also prove that they've

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Speaker 4: made positive contribution to society. And the government has also

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Speaker 4: announced that it's reintroducing something called neighborhood investigations into aspiring citizens.

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Speaker 4: And this is a discretionary practice that's actually been shelved

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Speaker 4: since the nineties. According to the Trump administration, it could

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Speaker 4: involve covering the candidate's place of residency or employment dating

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Speaker 4: back to at least five years from attemism of their applications,

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Speaker 4: and the government has said that this is just the

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Speaker 4: beginning of the changes they plan to make to the process.

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Speaker 4: Here's Jullie Mitchell again.

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Speaker 5: The agency is like attempting to raise the bar and say,

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Speaker 5: like the absence of anything bad isn't enough anymore. You

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Speaker 5: have to like prove affirmatively your good moral character. The statute,

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Speaker 5: the regulations Policy Manual have not changed at all. It's

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Speaker 5: just this memo saying that this is now required, which

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Speaker 5: is kind of vague.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Mitchell and other legal experts told me that they're

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Speaker 4: kind of playing it by ear at the moment, waited

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Speaker 4: to see how this will all be implemented.

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Speaker 3: How are her students reacting to these changes, especially given

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Speaker 3: what's going on in the news right now.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so the students I spoke with politely declined to

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Speaker 4: be interviewed for a little more context. I think it's

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Speaker 4: worth noting that students have become more and more hesitant

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Speaker 4: to speak with the media, especially non citizens. I cover

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Speaker 4: a lot of college campuses, and this has kind of

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Speaker 4: been like the trend, to be honest, in recent months.

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Speaker 4: The ones who did speak to me generally said that

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Speaker 4: they're still excited about the prospect of becoming citizens, but

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Speaker 4: they're being careful about not posting anything that could be

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Speaker 4: perceived negatively by the government on social media. And Michaelson

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Speaker 4: also told me that some of our students are worried

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Speaker 4: about the neighborhood investigations. They're like, you know, some of

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Speaker 4: us have in apartments and we're not necessarily buddy buddy

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Speaker 4: with all our neighbors.

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Speaker 3: And how is Professor Michaelson's curriculum kept up with these

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Speaker 3: new changes to the naturalization process as.

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Speaker 4: So, long story short, she's had to kind of figure

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Speaker 4: out how to teach more in the same amount of time,

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Speaker 4: and she told me that that's probably going to mean

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Speaker 4: moving faster through some lessons and maybe making cuts to

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Speaker 4: some other lessons to ensure that she covers all of

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Speaker 4: the material.

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Speaker 3: You mentioned to me that professor Michaelson will start encouraging

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Speaker 3: her students to speak to attorneys. Why is that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, for the time being, she does plan to tell

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Speaker 4: her students to speak with an attorney before submitting their

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Speaker 4: applications for naturalization, and she just wants them to have

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Speaker 4: a legal expert weigh in and be on their side

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Speaker 4: to answer questions she may not be able to. The

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Speaker 4: administration has stated that it aims to make it more

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Speaker 4: challenging to become a citizen, and I should note that

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Speaker 4: probably having to learn the answer to twenty more questions

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Speaker 4: that may not seem like a big deal, but this

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Speaker 4: is a very high stakes test, right. This is about,

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Speaker 4: like you, being able to become a citizen. And if

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Speaker 4: candidates fail the English or the Civics test, they do

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Speaker 4: get one more chance, but after that, if they don't pass,

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Speaker 4: they don't get to become US citizens. So for educators

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Speaker 4: like Michaelson, on top of all concerns, it also really

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Speaker 4: feels like there's a disconnect between what they're teaching their

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Speaker 4: students and what they're seeing unfold or happened to non

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Speaker 4: citizens who engage in activism. As we mentioned earlier, that.

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Speaker 1: Was Nei da Moreno hosting Imperfect Paradise. She was speaking

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Speaker 1: with reporter Juria Rajas about the changes playing out inside

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Speaker 1: a citizenship prep class at Pasadena City College. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: our friends at ELIST, here are the credits.

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Speaker 3: Special thanks to Senior Education editor Ross Brunneman and Senior

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Speaker 3: editor Matt Ballinger. I'm Neri da Moreno. Angelie Sastri is

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Speaker 3: our senior producer. James Chowd produced and sound designed this episode.

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Speaker 3: Catherine Malhouse is the executive producer of the show and

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Speaker 3: our director of content Development. Mixing and original music by E.

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Speaker 3: Scott Kelly