WASHINGTON: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, known as USCIS, issued a policy memo on November 4 telling its officers how to weigh an applicant’s conduct when they decide whether a person seeking citizenship has shown good moral character, the agency said.
Good moral character is a legal requirement for naturalization, which is the process by which a lawful permanent resident becomes a United States citizen. In plain words, officers look at how a person has behaved and whether they have met their basic legal and family obligations. A finding that an applicant lacks good moral character can lead to a citizenship application being denied, even when the person meets the other requirements, such as time in the country and the civics test.
Under the memo, officers may find that an applicant lacks good moral character in three situations described by the agency. The first is willfully failing to support dependents, meaning a person who was required to support family members chose not to do so. The second is committing fraud or deception involving public benefits. The third is failing to meet obligations taken on under an Affidavit of Support, in the Form I-864 family, or a Declaration of Financial Support, in the Form I-134 family. Those forms are promises, usually made by a sponsor, to support an immigrant financially.
USCIS was also clear about one limit. The agency said that lawful receipt of means tested public benefits, by itself, is not a bar to naturalization. Means tested benefits are public programs that look at a person’s income and resources, such as some food, cash and health assistance. In other words, an applicant is not to be denied simply because they lawfully received help they qualified for. The memo focuses instead on fraud, deception and unmet support duties.
The period officers normally examine is the five years before an application is filed. For certain spouses of United States citizens, that period is three years. USCIS noted that conduct from before that period can still be considered in some cases, which is one reason an applicant’s full history can matter, and not only the most recent years.
The agency said it will write new guidance in its Policy Manual and will revise Form N-400, the application for naturalization, to collect information about benefit use and the support of dependents. USCIS gave no date for when the new guidance or the revised form will appear. Until then, the memo tells officers how the agency wants these questions weighed under the rules now in place.
Why it matters is direct for immigrant families. Many applicants support children or parents, received some form of public help during a hard period, or were sponsored by a relative who signed a support promise. Under this memo, questions about missed support payments, benefit applications and sponsor duties may carry more weight in citizenship cases, and a paperwork problem could become a bigger issue if an officer reads it as fraud or as a failure to support dependents.
Immigration lawyers advise applicants to review their history before filing, including support orders, tax records and any benefits they received, and to get legal advice if anything in that history is unclear. That is general information, not legal advice for any one case. What happens next depends on the Policy Manual guidance and the revised Form N-400, which will show in detail what new questions applicants must answer.
Sources: USCIS newsroom and policy memoranda.
