EXC: Biden Exec Order Hints at Removal of Oath of Allegiance for New Migrants.

President Biden’s February executive order on immigration hints at a potential removal of the oath of allegiance for new migrants seeking U.S. citizenship. 

The Executive Order on Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans outlines the White House effort to “promote naturalization” in section five.

The order outlines how various people – including the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security – would conduct a review of existing components of the immigration process.

Among the barriers to citizenship potentially on the chopping block is the oath of allegiance – which requires citizens to “renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity” with any other country and promise to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies”:

Eliminate barriers in and otherwise improve the existing naturalization process, including by conducting a comprehensive review of that process with particular emphasis on the N-400 application, fingerprinting, background and security checks, interviews, civics and English language tests, and the oath of allegiance.

And Following this order, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) has already reverted the naturalization test to its pre-Trump predecessor, noting the action was “consistent with the framework of the Executive Order on Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems, which directs a comprehensive review of the naturalization process to eliminate barriers and make the process more accessible to all eligible individuals.”

In contrast, Trump’s version of the test was cast as “longer and more difficult.”