It should be obvious why the news from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that the agency will be focusing more on applicants’ “good moral character” is problematic. First, it follows previous moves by the Trump administration to tighten and whiten the bottleneck of people entering the United States and to ramp up the number of people it can deport or order out.
But there’s another, glaring reason it’s problematic. Imagine doing everything objectively necessary to become a citizen of the United States of America and then being told you’re about to have your character assessed by an administration led by President Donald Trump. You might wonder exactly what you’re supposed to pass. Be honest or dishonest? Charitable or greedy? Neighborly or narcissistic?
Imagine being told you’re about to have your character assessed by an administration led by President Donald Trump.
The president was found liable of sexual abuse and defamation. The president falsified business records. The president was impeached twice. The president is a prolific prevaricator. Loyalty to Trump — and a commitment to parroting the lies that Trump tells — has become a prerequisite for some federal positions. Surely, no one with Trump’s track record could pass any legitimate test of moral character, but we’re supposed to accept his administration as the arbiter of who’s good enough to become a citizen?
The USCIS guidance announcing a new focus on “good moral character” came in a Friday policy memo with the subject line “Restoring a Rigorous, Holistic, and Comprehensive Good Moral Character Evaluation Standard for Aliens Applying for Naturalization.”
Since the beginning — in this case, 1790 — people have had to demonstrate good moral character to become naturalized citizens. There’s nothing inherently wrong with such a requirement. However, until now, “good moral character” essentially meant staying out of trouble. But this is what Friday’s memo says:
Going forward, USCIS officers must account for an alien’s positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct. In evaluating whether or not an alien has met the requirement of establishing GMC the Officer must take a holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming the rights and responsibilities of United States Citizenship.
How, exactly, do people — especially in this Trump era — affirmatively establish that they’re worthy of being citizens? Must they have Lee Greenwood playlists on their phones? Truth Social installed as an app? Receipts for Trump’s Victory 45-47 in their inboxes?
Jane Lopez, an associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University and an expert on the policies regarding immigration and citizenship in the United States, told The Washington Post that the new guidance could “make it harder for noncitizens to obtain legal belonging in the United States” because USCIS officers now “must evaluate something they cannot consistently describe or define.”
When the Post asked USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser how the agency will define good moral character, he responded with a statement that essentially repeated some of the language from Friday’s memo, namely that officers would be looking for applicants’ contributions to U.S. society, “including community involvement, achievements, and financial responsibility rather than the absence of their misconduct.”
He added that U.S. citizenship should be extended only to “the world’s best of the best.” That language might not sound bad, but it is bad.
Given Trump’s racist dismissal of “s—hole countries,” his antipathy toward majority Muslim nations — Saudi Arabia and Qatar excepted, of course — his fondness for white descendants of South Africa’s apartheid state, his executive order opposed to birthright citizenship and his proposal to put some foreigners on the path to U.S. citizenship in exchange for $5 million, we should worry that his “best of the best” looks a lot more homogenous than the United States looks.
We’ve already seen Trump and members of his administration conflate political positions opposite theirs with bad character. They decided that Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student with a green card, needed to be deported because he advocated for Palestinians in campus protests.
The new directive that people applying for citizenship prove their worth to USCIS officers is disturbing and shouldn’t be taken lightly. A doctoral student from Turkey studying at Tufts was threatened with deportation and detained for more than six weeks after she co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing Tuft’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. The Vermont judge who ordered Rümeysa Öztürk’s release said the federal government hadn’t provided any evidence that suggested she was arrested for something other than expressing her written opinion that Tufts should “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest from Israel. Given this context, the new directive that people applying for citizenship prove their worth to USCIS officers is disturbing and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Being partisan — up to and including being critical of U.S. policy — isn’t inconsistent with citizenship. If it were, who among us would qualify? The end of Friday’s memo says: This approach will empower USCIS officers to review the complete history of aliens seeking naturalization, where no regulatory or statutory bars exist, and require such aliens to present their full story, demonstrating how their life aligns with a pattern of behavior that is consistent with the current ethical standards and expectations of the community in which they reside. Gabriel J. Chin, a University of California, Davis, law professor, told The Washington Post that new USCIS guidance is “so loose and discretionary that it is obviously susceptible to arbitrary enforcement.” That’s not surprising for an administration led by a president who scoffs at the rule of law and acts like he’s a king. There is no law for kings. They can favor or disfavor whomever they choose. But we should all want a naturalization process that doesn’t involve a leader determining a person’s moral fitness or worth — and especially not this leader.
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily. He was previously editor-in-chief at the Louisiana Illuminator and a columnist and deputy opinion editor at The Times-Picayune. 
