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11/14/2025

Today’s blog

Lynn Murphy Mark

The devil strikes again

It’s been a while since I’ve had an immigration subject to write about. That is surprising given this administration’s heavy-handed treatment of the immigration rules and regulations. In our office we simply come in every day not looking for trouble, but often having trouble slap us in the face.

Yesterday was one of those days. About once a week I go to the USCIS website to check the status of my clients’ cases. This tells me if there has been any new development with each case. Usually changes are very slow to happen, so sometimes I am caught by surprise when there has been some decision made. I go down the list alphabetically and if there is a change I know I must advise the client. Sometimes it’s very good news. Sometimes it’s not so good. 

I have a client here as a refugee from Burundi. This is a landlocked country in East Africa. It lies between Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Congo, and has around 14 million residents. If you remember, Rwanda underwent a very bloody civil war between the Tutsis and the Hutus. In Burundi there is a sizeable population of Hutus and a smaller population of Tutsis. These people have lived in Burundi for more than 500 years.

Burundi is a very small country in a huge continent. It is the poorest country in the world and one of the least developed. According to Wikipedia, “The 2018 World Happiness Report, ranked the country as the world’s least happy with a rank of 156.” I don’t know what brought my client here from her native land, but given the little I know I can only imagine it was out of desperation.

Burundi also happens to be one of 47’s banned countries. The State Department advises us not to travel there due to high crime and generally dangerous conditions. When I got my client I worried if this would have any effect on the consideration of her citizenship case. She has a legitimately acquired Green Card, so she is here legally, and has been here long enough to meet the 5 year requirement to change her Green Card into a citizenship certificate.

I sent her case off to Chicago and it was received on October 20. I got a notice that they could use her previous set of fingerprints and that her fee waiver had been approved. So far so good, thought I. 

But here is Stephen Miller’s latest barrier to legally acquired citizenship. Before October 20, applicants had to study a list of 100 civics questions. In their interviews, they were asked 10 questions and had to get 6 of them right in order to pass. I can assure you that us native born citizens would have trouble answering the questions without a goodly amount of time to study them. This part of the citizenship interview is what causes my clients the most amount of anxiety. Usually as we wait in the waiting room for the interview to happen, all citizenship candidates are still frantically studying the questions.

Back to the immigration devil-man. Very recently a new rule came down. Suddenly, the test now has 128 questions and candidates must answer 12 out of 20 correctly. Well, that can be a challenge, but up until now people have had 4 – 6 months to study before being scheduled for their interview. 

Here’s the latest huge hurdle: USCIS is scheduling interviews within a month of receipt of the file. Yesterday as I checked my client’s case online, my stomach lurched when I saw the message, “You have been scheduled for your interview. We will send a letter with a date and time to appear at USCIS.” My client’s case was received less than a month ago and she is now being scheduled. A colleague in my office had two similar cases – a rapid turnaround so the clients had very little time to study and learn. Both of them failed the civics exam. 

If my client doesn’t pass the test – and I sadly anticipate this will be the outcome – she will have an opportunity for a second interview. It may be months before she is scheduled again, which is probably best because she will have time to really get into the questions and answers.

There is such a huge sense of disappointment when a client does not pass the interview. After it’s over, I spend a lot of time assuring the client that they will have a second chance, and trying to be positive about how this gives more time for studying. But still, it’s a failure for them. I have had a couple of traumatized clients decide not to pursue citizenship after all. 

These are people who have done everything asked of them to get a Green Card, wait the 5 year period before applying, and then putting their lives on the line when they do apply. I know this is a Stephen Miller tactic to make it as hard as possible for immigrants to gain full acceptance in the USA. Shame on him for this despicable move.