City to try an updated citizenship test soon

Boston will be one of the first 10 cities to offer a new citizenship test designed to gauge immigrants' understanding of the Constitution, rather than their ability to memorize picayune facts about US history and government.

Instead of questions on the colors of the US flag and the name of the form used to apply for citizenship, the new exam will ask about the Bill of Rights and the meaning of democracy. Federal officials say they hope the test will be more standardized, and more substantive.

"The intent is to create a test, and a testing process, that is fair and meaningful," said Shawn Saucier , spokesman for the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of Homeland Security. "It is not to make it harder. A lot of the current questions really are trivia questions. . . . The new test is designed to encourage immigrants to really look at our history and government, and what we value as a society."

The new citizenship exam will be administered to all applicants for naturalization nationwide starting in 2008. During the pilot program starting in the winter, it will be offered only in the 10 cities and on a voluntary basis.

Officials hope to work out the kinks by administering the test to 5,000 people during the pilot program and to narrow down the 125 questions being considered to 100. To pass the test , immigrants will have to correctly answer six of 10 selected questions.

Saucier would make the new exam questions available.

Some immigrant advocates dread the introduction of the new test because they say a more sophisticated set of questions will make for a harder exam, raising the already-high bar for citizenship. In a letter to the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a national coalition of immigrant rights groups decried the new test, and widely expected jumps in citizenship application fees, as part of a "second wall" to immigrants seeking citizenship, just as the recently approved wall at the Mexican border is designed to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country.

"We are highly suspicious of their motives for [redesigning the test]," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which drafted the letter, signed by more than 220 immigrant organizations. "We think that it may be designed to make it difficult for less - educated immigrants to become citizens."

Hoyt said the redesigned test, combined with other proposed changes to the citizenship application process, is an example of the Bush administration using administrative rules to change policy without public input or oversight.

Advocates are concerned that few extra support services will be provided with the new test. There are still some 20,000 immigrants on waiting lists for English classes statewide. And although the state provided $500,000 for citizenship training in this year's budget, the funding falls far short of the $2 million provided in 2001, advocates said.

"There's no commitment on the part of [the federal government] to . . . provide the resources so that people can actually learn to pass it," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

Immigration officials have maintained that the test will be as easy to prepare for as the one currently administered and that the result of the new process will be citizens who have a deeper understanding of US institutions.