Path to Citizenship: Easy? Hard? Somewhere in Between?
Naturalization is the process in which U.S. citizenship is granted to a foreign citizen after he or she fulfills the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
This act establishes the basic requirements for citizenship as:
- Being age 18 or older
- Being a permanent resident for a certain amount of time (usually 5 years but less for some individuals)
- Have a period of continuous residence and physical presence in the United States during that 5 years
- Being a person of good moral character
- Have a basic knowledge of U.S. history and government
- Being able to read, write, and speak basic English
Many people find the path to citizenship to be more complicated then simply checking those six items off of a list. Click the image to the right to take a look at some of the various paths someone might take to citzenship (Illustrated by Terry Colon. From Reason Magazine, October 2008).
We also decided to ask our community what they think. A Homeland inquiry into this matter found that people’s opinions on the difficulty of obtaining citizenship span a wide range of views from easy to difficult. Take a look:
Category: Citizenship
that’s fair enough