The Trump administration plans to more heavily scrutinize foreign nationals applying for American citizenship as it continues to tighten enforcement standards across the board.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency tasked with managing the country’s legal immigration system, will no longer only consider an alien’s absence of misconduct during the naturalization process, but will also identify their “positive attributes” to society, according to a new memo from the agency. The Trump administration argues the move will restore integrity to the citizenship application process.
“U.S. citizenship is the gold standard of citizenship — it should only be offered to the world’s best of the best,” Matthew Tragesser, a USCIS spokesperson, said in a public statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Today, USCIS is adding a new element to the naturalization process that ensures America’s newest citizens not only embrace America’s culture, history, and language but who also demonstrate Good Moral Character,” Tragesser continued. “This memo ensures that USCIS officers are accounting for an alien’s positive contributions to American society — including community involvement, achievements, and financial responsibility rather than the absence of their misconduct.”
Permanent legal residents on a pathway to American citizenship must demonstrate they are an individual of good moral character (GMC), according to USCIS. This evaluation typically involves an assessment of an alien’s behavior, including a review focused on the absence of any wrongdoing. Under these updated guidelines, the GMC assessment is expanded to involve a “holistic” evaluation of an applicant’s behavior and positive contributions.
Positive attributes to be considered will include “sustained” community involvement, family caregiving, educational attainment, sustained employment, financial responsibility and other factors, according to the USCIS memo.
USCIS will also mandate tighter scrutiny of “acts that are contrary to the average behavior of citizens,” such as actions that are technically lawful but also inconsistent with civic responsibility, according to the memo. This behavior could include “reckless or habitual traffic infractions, or harassment or aggressive solicitation.”
In addition, the agency will also consider factors that demonstrate an applicant who has engaged in wrongdoing in the past has rehabilitated, such as paying overdue taxes, complying with probation and similar actions, according to USCIS.
“USCIS will continue to restore integrity in the nation’s immigration system — especially when it comes to the prestigious privilege of citizenship,” Tragesser said.
The policy updates are the Trump administration’s latest efforts to shore up enforcement of both legal and illegal immigration into the U.S. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, USCIS and its director, Joe Edlow, have implemented new measures to bar non-citizens from partaking in U.S. elections and the agency aims to restore integrity to immigration programs that are rife with fraudulent applicants.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border has yielded unprecedented success, with Border Patrol agents releasing zero migrants into the interior of the country for the third straight month as of July 2025.
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