New guidance from the Trump administration gives federal officers more leeway to reject citizenship applications on the basis of individuals lacking “good moral character.”
That criteria, which has long been a part of citizenship evaluations, has typically been satisfied if a person doesn’t have a history of violence or unlawful conduct, CBS News’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports. Following a Friday memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, however, officers have been directed to take a “holistic” look at what “good moral character” entails, allowing them to flag applications for a much wider swath of reasons.
Those include whether a person has sufficient “positive attributes and contributions” such as involvement in the community, employment history and educational attainment. And they also include whether an individual has a history of lesser offenses like repeated traffic infractions or a pattern of other “acts that are contrary to the average behavior of citizens in the jurisdiction where aliens reside.”
“Going forward, USCIS officers must account for an alien’s positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct,” the memo reads.
This approach means that people could theoretically see their applications denied if officers don’t believe they’ve contributed enough to their communities, or if they take issue with certain past activities.
