Civics question 68 of 128

How can people become United States citizens?

Source: official USCIS question list for the 2025 version of the civics test. This site is independent and not affiliated with USCIS.

Background

Three routes answer this: being born in the United States under the conditions set by the Fourteenth Amendment, going through the process to naturalize, and deriving citizenship under conditions Congress sets, usually through a parent. The first is constitutional and the other two are statutory, which is the distinction worth holding onto. The Fourteenth Amendment's opening sentence, ratified in 1868, made citizenship a birthright for those born here and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, overturning the Dred Scott decision, which had held that people of African descent could not be citizens at all. For everyone else Congress writes the rules under its Article I power to set a uniform rule on the subject, and it has rewritten them many times since 1790.

This background section is written by US Citizenship Test Practice to explain the civics fact. It is not part of the USCIS question list, and the official answer above is the one to give at the interview.

Where this question sits

It is part of Rights and Responsibilities, inside the American Government section of the test.

Related questions

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