Civics question 97 of 128
What amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are U.S. citizens?
Official answer
- 14th Amendment
Source: official USCIS question list for the 2025 version of the civics test. This site is independent and not affiliated with USCIS.
Background
The Fourteenth Amendment says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. Ratified in 1868, it is one of the three Reconstruction amendments, and it was written to overturn the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which had held that people of African descent could not be citizens. The amendment does far more than define citizenship. Its later clauses forbid any state to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or to deny equal protection of the laws, and those phrases have carried most of the constitutional law of the past century. Note that it binds the states, where the Bill of Rights originally limited only the federal government.
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 1800s, inside the American History section of the test.
Related questions
- 98. When did all men get the right to vote?
- 99. Name one leader of the women's rights movement in the 1800s.
- 90. What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?
- 91. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1800s.
- 92. Name the U.S. war between the North and the South.
- 93. The Civil War had many important events. Name one.