Could You Earn American Citizanship
Brent Harvey 3/16/2015
Summery
Main Idea
Citizen ship should be earned not given even for natural born citizens.
Proponents of requiring the test that immigrants must take to become American citizens say that preparing young people to be well-informed and engaged in civic affairs should be a priority for schools
A recent survey found that only 36 percent of Americans could name the three branches of the U.S. government, and 35 percent couldn't name a single one.
"Our high school graduates across the country [should] be able to demonstrate a rudimentary knowledge of civics education as they are graduating high school," says Frank Riggs, a former California congressman who is president of the Joe Foss Institute, a nonprofit group that's urging states to adopt the test.
If you were born in the U.S., you have what's called birthright citizenship, meaning you're automatically a U.S. citizen. But more than 650,000 immigrants become naturalized citizens each year.