Would-Be Citizens Will Face New Test, If It's Ever Written
Critics Say the Civics Exam
Is Trivial and Arbitrary,
But Few Agree on the Fix
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
Alfonso Aguilar's job is to write a test that almost everyone can pass. It isn't as easy as it sounds.
Mr. Aguilar heads the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Citizenship, which the Bush administration has charged with rewriting the civics and literacy tests that immigrants must pass to become U.S. citizens.
As it is, 97% of those who take the civics test make it through by answering questions such as "Where is the White House located?" and "How many states are there in the Union?" A similar number -- 95% -- pass the literacy test by reading one English sentence and writing another. Last year, 418,332 people became citizens after passing those two exams.
No one objects to the high pass rate. "What does the nation gain if you fail people out of citizenship?" asks Mr. Aguilar, a former press secretary and a political appointee, who's a U.S. citizen by virtue of his birth in Puerto Rico in 1969.
But almost everyone objects to the test, with immigrant advocates insisting it is arbitrary, scholars saying it is meaningless and both agreeing it is borderline goofy. "Trivia," says John Fonte, an immigration historian at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Mr. Fonte's grandmother studied a 283-page textbook to prepare for her citizenship interview in 1956.
Mr. Aguilar, while vague on the details of how he plans to change the test, says the new version shouldn't just be a measure of memorization, "something an al Qaeda agent could breeze through." He says it also should "encourage civic learning and patriotism."
With legal and illegal immigrants accounting for one in eight U.S. residents, changing the rules that determine who becomes an American is an emotional and complicated issue, even by Washington standards. The project to develop a new test is already nine years old -- it predated Mr. Aguilar's appointment -- and has at least two years to go.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
For how long do we elect members of the House of Representatives?
Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death?"
Who becomes president if both the president and the vice president die?
Read answers to these and the other 93 possible citizenship questions.For generations, the citizenship test consisted largely of an interview with an immigration officer. Only in 1986 was the process standardized into a test with a specific format. As Mr. Aguilar tells it, "a couple of immigration officers who were not scholars" tossed together a list of 96 questions that range from the obvious (#13: "Who is the President?") to the obscure (#88: "What's the name of the citizenship-application form?" Answer: N-400).
The Department of Homeland Security, which now oversees immigration, publishes the list of questions. During the test, an examiner picks any 10; a would-be citizen must answer six correctly. To test for English competence, the examiner provides two sentences and asks the test-taker to read one and write another. The examiner can make up sentences or chose from a list of 98 possibilities the government publishes. The list includes "All people want to be free" and "He has a very big dog."
Almost from the beginning, the 1986 test inspired complaints. Immigrant-rights groups charge it is arbitrary and subject to abuse: There is little to prevent an examiner from choosing a tough question such as #72 -- "Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights" -- instead of an easy one such as #1 -- "What are the colors of our flag?" (The answer to #72 is the 15th, 19th and 24th.)
Conservative groups fret that the test doesn't promote assimilation by teaching immigrants about American history and the workings of government. "You want a test that makes people think about what it means to be an American," says Matthew Spaulding, who studies immigration policy for the Heritage Foundation, a think tank.
So in 1997, the Clinton administration set up a commission to study the exam, along with other elements of immigration policy. It concluded that the test didn't probe a candidate's "meaningful knowledge" of history and civics. The panel then closed up shop. A string of other government studies followed. They came to the same conclusion and the same end.
In 2001, the Bush administration hired a test-writing company to draft a study guide that could be used to create a new set of civics questions. But immigrant advocates said potential citizens would be baffled by the guide's sophisticated language, such as "inalienable rights." Worse, the guide became tinder in the long-running culture war between liberals and conservatives, who accused each other of ignoring America's failings or discounting its glories. The new questions were never written.
The company also created a literacy exam that asked immigrants to describe in writing what was happening in a picture. During a trial run, failure rates soared.
The test-writing company was dropped and more studies followed before Mr. Aguilar took over the project in April after a stint as press secretary for Latin America and Caribbean affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mr. Aguilar promises that he will have a plan in 2006, that a team of psychometricians will produce a new test by 2007 and that it will be in use in 2008.
Mr. Aguilar says he is inclined only to "tweak" the old test. For example, instead of asking who wrote the Declaration of Independence -- question #54, answer Thomas Jefferson -- the new test might ask a would-be citizen to name one of its concepts." 'Fundamental rights' would be an answer," Mr. Aguilar suggests. Meanwhile, the literacy test would rein in the examiners' discretion over which questions to ask.
Mr. Aguilar also proposes orientation sessions for immigrants, training for teachers leading citizenship classes and study guides to help immigrants pass. "If you have 98% passing, that's fine with me," he says.
Immigrant groups aren't reassured. With Congress and the White House proposing an overhaul of immigration laws, advocates worry that the U.S. welcome mat could be pulled in. "It's a dangerous time to be tinkering" with the citizenship process, says Michele Waslin, research director of La Raza, a group that advocates for Hispanics on matters such as education and housing.
For all the promises about test-preparation help, Mr. Aguilar's office has only $3.2 million to spend on citizenship programs. The Department of Education budgets another $7 million for civics education for adult immigrants, Mr. Aguilar says. That doesn't go far in a country that counted 34.2 million foreign-born residents last year, including both citizens and noncitizens, legal and illegal.
In Silver Spring, Md., which is 35% foreign-born, Pamela Leith holds a class for immigrants training for the current exam. They hail from El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic and pay $70 a semester.
One recent evening, Ms. Leith, a public-school teacher by day, taught a lesson on the three branches of government. Then her students practiced the answer to question #17 on the citizenship test: "What is the Constitution?" "The supreme law of the land," they repeated. When Ms. Leith asked who becomes president if the president dies -- question #16 -- Berte Rosa Saucedo, who works in a laundry, ventured cautiously, "The vice presidente?"
Throughout the 90-minute lesson, 12-year-old Wilber Lopez, who was born in the U.S., stood over his parents, Zuma and Gilberto. He translated Ms. Leith's questions and amplified her answers. Asked why she wants to be a citizen, Mrs. Lopez, who cleans office buildings, was quick with an answer: "Because I want to vote." Besides, she added, Wilber wants to be president.
美国入籍考试面临调整
阿方索?阿吉拉(Alfonso Aguilar)的工作是出一份几乎人人都能通过的考卷。听上去很容易，其实不然。
阿吉拉是美国国土安全部(Department of Homeland Security)国籍办公室的负责人。布什(Bush)政府已责成该机构重新设计一份公民知识试卷和语文试卷，想成为美国公民的移民必须通过这两项考试。
目前，97%的人都能轻而易举地通过公民知识考试，他们只需回答诸如“白宫在哪里？”、“美国有多少个州？”之类的问题。同样，95%的人都能通过语文考试，题目包括阅读一句英文句子，然后再写一句英文句子等。去年，有418,332位移民通过了上述两项考试，正式成为美国公民。
没有人对如此之高的通过率提出异议。“如果不让这些人成为美国公民，这个国家又能得到什么好处呢？”曾担任新闻秘书、并由总统任命为国籍办公室负责人的阿吉拉反问道。他本人于1969年出生在波多黎各，自然成为美国公民。
然而，几乎所有人都反对这种考试形式：支持移民的人士声称它们太主观；学者们表示它们毫无意义；而且他们都认为这种考试愚蠢透了。“真是浪费时间，”哈得逊学院(Hudson Institute)研究移民的历史学家约翰?福特(John Fonte)说。该学院位于哥伦比亚特区，是一个思想保守的智囊团。福特的祖母于1956年参加了入籍考试面试，当时她为此钻研了一本长达283页的教科书。
阿吉拉没有具体透露他将如何对考试进行修改，只是说改版后的考试可不仅仅是考察记忆力。“如果只需要死记硬背，基地组织的成员都能轻易过关，”他表示。“考试应该鼓励人们学习公民知识，培养爱国精神。”
当前，合法和非法移民合计占美国居民总数的八分之一，因此改变决定谁能成为美国公民的规则是一件敏感而又复杂的事情，即便以华盛顿的标准来看也是如此。推出新型考试的计划已是9年前的事了，那时阿吉拉还没有担任国籍办公室的负责人。这项计划至少还要两年的时间才能完成。
在过去几十年里，入籍考试主要是与移民局官员的面谈，直到1986年这个过程才规范起来，采取了标准的考试流程。正如阿吉拉指出的那样，“几位并非学者出身的移民局官员一起列出了一份包含96个问题的问卷，其中既有很简单的问题，诸如谁是现任美国总统？也有很难的问题，如国籍申请表的名称是什么？”
目前负责移民事宜的美国国土安全部公布了上述问卷。在实际考试中，考官从中随机抽取10个问题，而想成为美国公民的申请人必须答对6个问题。在测试英语水平的考试中，考官给出两个句子，要求考生读出其中一句，并写下另一句。考官可以自己出句子，或者从政府公布的98个句子中任意挑选，其中包括“所有人都希望获得自由”和“他有一条很大的狗”之类的句子。
几乎从一开始，这种考试形式就招来了抱怨。支持移民的团体指责这种考试太主观，容易走样：谁能防止考官挑选难题，如“请说出保证或涉及选举权的修正案”，而不是容易的题目，如“美国国旗是什么颜色的？”
而保守团体担心的是，这种考试不能引导移民学习美国历史及政府的运作方式，无法促进他们的同化。“人们希望考试能让人思考成为美国人意味著什么，”马修?斯帕丁(Matthew Spaulding)说。他研究移民政策，在智囊团传统基金会(Heritage Foundation)工作。
因此在1997年，克林顿(Clinton)政府成立了一个委员会研究入籍考试问题以及其他移民政策。该委员会认为以前的考试无法考察申请人对于美国历史和公民学的“有用知识”。这个委员会随后就解散了。政府紧接著还进行了一系列调查，并得出了相同的结论。
2001年，布什政府聘请一家考试公司编写学习指南，作为新型公民知识考卷的基础。但支援移民的人士表示，这份指南用语晦涩，想入籍的申请人可能会感到太难，里面采用了如“不可剥夺的权力”之类的词语。更糟糕的是，该指南成了自由派和保守派之间旷日持久的文化战的一根导火线，双方都指责对方忽视了美国的不足，或是轻视了美国的辉煌。但新的问题一直没有推出。
这家考试公司还编写了语文试卷，要求移民看图作文。在初步测试中，考试通过率大大降低。
于是这家考试公司被淘汰出局，在阿吉拉于今年4月接手推出新型考试项目之前，政府还进行了一些调查研究。此前，阿吉拉担任美国国际发展署(U.S. Agency for International Development)负责拉丁美洲和加勒比地区事务的新闻秘书。阿吉拉承诺，相关计划将于2006年完成，然后心理测验学家们将在2007年前推出新型试题，并于2008年正式采用。
阿吉拉表示，他希望仅对现有试题进行一些“改动”。例如，现在的问题是谁写了《独立宣言》，答案是汤玛斯?杰弗逊?(Thomas Jefferson)，新的试题也许会请申请人说出《独立宣言》中的一点内容。“根本权利是答案之一，”阿吉拉说。此外，语文试卷也将对考官的提问选择进行一定的控制。
阿吉拉还建议对移民进行考试辅导，对教授公民知识课程的教师进行培训，并研究学习指南，以帮助移民顺利通过考试。“如果考试通过率达到98%，我就很满意了，”他说。
移民团体并没有感到宽慰。由于美国国会和白宫要求修改移民法，支持移民的人士担心美国欢迎移民的态度可能会有所转变。“现在修改加入国籍的过程是危险的，”麦克?瓦斯林(Michele Waslin)指出。他目前担任La Raza的研究主任，该团体主要为西班牙裔美国人争取教育和住房利益。
至于那些考前辅导，阿吉拉所在的国籍办公室只有320万美元可用于相关项目。他表示，美国教育部(Department of Education)另外拨出700万美元用于成年移民的公民知识教育。然而，这对于美国这样一个国家还是不够的，单是去年在美国生活的非本土出生的人口就有3,420万，其中既包括美国公民，也包括合法和非法居留的外国人。
在马里兰州银泉市，有35%的居民是非本土出生的。潘蜜拉?利思(Pamela Leith)为参加最近一期入籍考试的移民举办了培训班。这些移民来自萨尔瓦多、尼加拉瓜和多明尼加共和国，学费是一学期70美元。
不久前的一个晚上，身为公立中学教师的利思在讲授美国政府的三大部门。接著，她的学生练习回答入籍考试中的问题：“什么是宪法？”。“美国的最高法律，”学生回答说。当利思问道如果总统去世，谁将担任总统时，在洗衣房工作的贝蒂?萨丝多(Berte Rosa Saucedo)小心翼翼地说，“是副总统吗？”
在90分钟的上课时间里，在美国出生的12岁的威尔伯?落佩兹(Wilber Lopez)始终领先于他的父母亲。他把利思老师的问题翻译给父母听，并详细解释答案。当被问及为什么想成为美国公民时，在大楼里当清洁工的落佩兹太太很爽快地说，“因为我想获得选举权。”另外，她又说，威尔伯想当美国总统。
