{"id":2218,"date":"2025-08-26T16:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T20:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/?p=2218"},"modified":"2025-08-26T16:38:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T20:38:25","slug":"uscis-expands-good-moral-character-standards-for-naturalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/2025\/08\/26\/uscis-expands-good-moral-character-standards-for-naturalization\/","title":{"rendered":"USCIS Expands \u201cGood Moral Character\u201d Standards for Naturalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/American-US-Flag-Resized-01.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1766\" style=\"width:300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/American-US-Flag-Resized-01.png 800w, https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/American-US-Flag-Resized-01-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/American-US-Flag-Resized-01-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has always assessed an applicant\u2019s \u201cgood moral character\u201d in adjudicating citizenship requests.  That assessment has generally involved a review of whether an applicant has committed certain crimes, including \u201caggravated felonies,\u201d and disqualifying misconduct.  In the absence of such offenses, applicants have generally been judged to possess \u201cgood moral character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The USCIS August 2025 policy memorandum on naturalization applications changes that approach.  Citizenship applicants will not be considered to possess \u201cgood moral character\u201d simply by pointing to a clean criminal record.\u00a0 They must now demonstrate positive factors, such as\u00a0community involvement, family caregiving, educational attainment, stable and lawful employment history, length of lawful residency in the US and compliance with tax obligations and financial responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jackson Lewis:<\/em><br><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalimmigrationblog.com\/2025\/08\/uscis-updates-policy-on-assessing-good-moral-character-in-adjudication-of-naturalization-applications\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">USCIS Updates Policy on Assessing Good Moral Character in Adjudication of Naturalization Applications<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has always assessed an applicant\u2019s \u201cgood moral character\u201d in adjudicating citizenship requests. That assessment has generally involved a review of whether an applicant has committed certain crimes, including \u201caggravated felonies,\u201d and disqualifying misconduct. In the absence of such offenses, applicants have generally been judged to possess \u201cgood moral [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1003,"featured_media":1766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[246,250,247,248,39],"class_list":["post-2218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-america","tag-citizenship-applicants","tag-good-moral-character","tag-naturalization","tag-uscis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2223,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions\/2223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiicareer.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}