Naturalization policy changes. Something that was recently released at the end of May, USCIS
made an announcement with regards to policy for what they call adjudicating the applications, which
is a fancy way of saying they've made changes in how they determine or make a decision on
an application. The change has to do with good moral character and voting or registering to
vote. This policy is making some clarifications about the impact of registering to
vote on your naturalization application. And by that, I mean registering to vote before you were
a US citizen. Before I get into the details of that, it's going to be extremely important
for you to have a background of exactly what I'm talking about. For naturalization,
that's the process where an individual who has been in possession or has had a green card
is able to apply to become a US citizen. There's a difference between being a lawful permanent
resident and becoming a United States citizen. To do that process, it's called naturalization.
One of the requirements of naturalization is that you have to show you have had
good moral character for the past five years before
filing your naturalization application or three years if you're married to a United States citizen.
Good moral character, just as it sounds, means that
you can show that you have been a good citizen or a good member of
society. It's confusing to say citizen when you're applying for a citizenship but a good member of
of society. Things that would show that you don't have good moral character
would be things specifically, criminal history, DUIs. If you've had criminal history in the
past three or five years, depending on your basis for filing naturalization, you wouldn't be
able to. You wouldn't necessarily be able to show a good moral character. If you have criminal history,
you'll definitely want to talk to an immigration attorney about whether or not you're
eligible. I won't get into any more details about that except to say, good moral character
is showing that you have been a good person. That you've stayed out of trouble.
With good moral character, something that comes up has to do with registering to
vote or actually voting in a US election. Voting is something that's only allowed for
US citizens. It's a privilege. It's a right to be able to vote in US elections. And so, the
issue with voting and you'll know if you have started the process to file your naturalization
application or if you've already done it, there's a few questions on that application
asking about, "Have you ever registered to vote?" and "Have you ever actually voted in an election?"
The issue becomes first of all, that doesn't show good moral character because
you were not being honest about your status. The other issue that can come up with
registering to vote when you're not a citizen is something called a false claim to citizenship.
A false claim to citizenship is really serious. It can lead to an individual being
ineligible to apply for a green card or in the case of somebody who already has a green card and
is trying to naturalize, it can lead to a deportation. A false claim to citizenship when
somebody says they are a United States citizen and they're not. That's a very serious immigration
offense. If you registered to vote which is something that's for United States citizens that
can cause that issue of a false claim to citizenship. Now I'm going to fast forward
to the policy that was recently released in May. What it says and what it means.
The reason they're releasing this policy is that the BMV, when you would go and get a driver's
license, a lot of states had in place where they would automatically register you to vote.
They thought they were being helpful, not clear on the implications or ramifications
of registering someone to vote who wasn't a United States citizen.
USCIS, knowing that they have changed the policy to be a little less
strict and by that I mean, if you had registered to vote and you
knew that you did and you did it intentionally, knowing you were not a United States
citizen, that's still a problem. I'll pull up the language here so you can see
the policy has clarified that USCIS will not penalize an applicant who
unknowingly or unwillingly registered to vote. This policy clarification is really
helpful because we have seen that it's a common thing. It happens unfortunately a
lot where individuals apply for a driver's license and somebody at the BMV, they're being helpful
and they registered them to vote. And then they later find out they were registered but they never
they never did that intentionally. They didn't do it on their own and they had no idea.
Before this policy, it would have been really impossible for an individual
to become a citizen to file for naturalization. USCIS is clarifying that if it happened to you
unknowingly or if it was something that happened that you unwillingly were registered.
Somebody at the BMV had registered you, that's not going to necessarily penalize you
and that you could still be eligible for naturalization.
The policy is long, I'll post it on the video below. In the notes
in the video below. This was some of the most important language from the policy
The policy also clarifies that USCIS does not consider an applicant to have
unlawfully claimed to be a United States citizen if the applicant did not affirmatively indicate
that he or she is a US citizen. That's exactly what I was talking about earlier where
if you had registered to vote, which is something that's reserved for United States citizens, that
you could be found to have made a false claim to citizenship, which as I mentioned earlier is really
serious because it can lead to someone's not just their ineligibility but their deportation.
This is a huge change. It's a great change that they have clarified this. I would
definitely recommend that if you happen to have a situation similar to this, where you had been
registered to vote, definitely still talk with an immigration attorney. It's very important you speak
with an immigration attorney because while this policy is great and it makes these clarifications
it's very fact-specific and that means that we we would as immigration attorneys,
what we would do here in our office is we would definitely want to look at exactly what happened
and whether or not we can really show that it was something that you did not willfully do
It's great news but still, it doesn't mean you should just go out if this is your situation
and apply. Definitely get legal advice first but it's great news that we wanted to share with
all of you. Again, I'll post the link to this actual policy notice in the notes below.