A new report on the system that purports to test immigrants on their eligibility to gain US citizenship has concluded that a third are unable to understand or speak English and are functionally illiterate. The new Center for Immigration Studies report claims that around five million naturalized citizens, approximately 32 percent, lack even ‘basic’ English skills.
The new report follows an earlier one, which discovered that 67 percent of immigrants who have lived in the US for at least 15 years are unable to speak much English. US Citizenship and Immigration Services claim that those wanting to gain US citizenship must have a basic understanding of the history and government of the US, as well as basic reading, writing, and speaking skills in the English language.
While the immigrants were able to pass the minimum required test, the Center for Immigration Studies looked at a more authoritative test from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies and discovered that, in reality, many immigrants are illiterate. The tests, conducted before the election of President Donald Trump, suggest that 32 percent of all new citizens, half of whom are Hispanic, cannot speak English to a functional level, if at all.
Independent public policy analyst, Jason Richwine, author of the study, says that the government’s English test is insufficient to test the language abilities of immigrants and that it needs to adopt more rigorous requirements.