Trump administration restores ‘neighborhood checks’ for citizenship applicants after 30-year hiatus

[Babu Frik 1,185]

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/trump-neighborhood-checks-citizenship-applicants-00527680

Edited yesterday at 05:15 PM by Crazy Cat

[TBoneTX 47,780]

Thread is moved from the US Citizenship Case Progress subforum to the US Immigration News forum, to be among similar threads.

[Babu Frik 1,185]

Some more links

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/neighborhood-checks-citizenship-applications/

 

https://www.newsweek.com/us-citizenship-naturalization-application-change-neighborhood-checks-2119748

 

https://natlawreview.com/article/uscis-expands-good-moral-character-standards-naturalization

 

[TBoneTX 47,780]

Seems like the Administration is looking for ways to be thorough under existing law.

[Dashinka 26,059]

8 hours ago, Babu Frik said:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/trump-neighborhood-checks-citizenship-applicants-00527680

Interesting, but apparently the law actually requires it and it was done though most of the 60's 70's, and 80's.  

 

Hmm, it also says it may look for affidavits for those filing N400's. Maybe this would nullify neighborhood checks.

[Babu Frik 1,185]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

Interesting, but apparently the law actually requires it and it was done though most of the 60's 70's, and 80's.  

 

Hmm, it also says it may look for affidavits for those filing N400's. Maybe this would nullify neighborhood checks.

Check the CBS link,  it's more clear on that last part. 

 

[JeanneAdil 7,209]

Security checks for those of us American born are so normal, i see nothing unusual about

I had a neighborhood check along with calls to the references i gave when i applied to house a foreign exchange student

 

My late husband had worked all his summers off from college for IBM but after graduation and going for a job with Federal systems division of IBM, they talked to neighbors, a couple of his teachers and 2 at his golf club

 

3 years ago FBI came here to inquire about a young man in our neighborhood that had gone into the military (didn't tell me why so i asked his parents later and they told me he had been trained for submarine duty and would now go to a nuclear sub.)

 

any time you give references for a job, etc,  don't be surprised if the people are called so its always best to ask them 1st if you can give out their name and number.

 

and if applying to work with children , schools are checking criminal reports even for bus drivers / they have to in this day and age

 

So to become a citizen , your standard of conduct should be above reproach

 

[Babu Frik 1,185]

46 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

Security checks for those of us American born are so normal, i see nothing unusual about

I had a neighborhood check along with calls to the references i gave when i applied to house a foreign exchange student

 

My late husband had worked all his summers off from college for IBM but after graduation and going for a job with Federal systems division of IBM, they talked to neighbors, a couple of his teachers and 2 at his golf club

 

3 years ago FBI came here to inquire about a young man in our neighborhood that had gone into the military (didn't tell me why so i asked his parents later and they told me he had been trained for submarine duty and would now go to a nuclear sub.)

 

any time you give references for a job, etc,  don't be surprised if the people are called so its always best to ask them 1st if you can give out their name and number.

 

and if applying to work with children , schools are checking criminal reports even for bus drivers / they have to in this day and age

 

So to become a citizen , your standard of conduct should be above reproach

 

probably just harder if you're an introvert 😄

 

I agree though, the process if pretty easy, actually extremely easy compared to other countries. I often see a lot of entitlement to the processes here.

The downside is that this can increase processing time.

 

[JeanneAdil 7,209]

The real downside is immigrants tend to live in communities of their ethnic group / so they would stick together and i would think support a fellow countryman for this process

 

I had to live on 118th street in NYC to finish my Masters at Columbia.  i was surprised when i went about the city that people stay and shop within a small radius of their apartment (did a study for socially class and it was 7 block radius)  Italians in one area,  Greeks in another , so on and so forth

 

My great grandparents and grandma -at age 2- came to the US thru Canada into Michigan.  i don't think any of them applied for citizenship but if they had ,  the neighbors to talk to would have been all family / great aunts and uncles, and cousins and aunts and uncles.  

 

 

[Babu Frik 1,185]

25 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

The real downside is immigrants tend to live in communities of their ethnic group / so they would stick together and i would think support a fellow countryman for this process

 

I had to live on 118th street in NYC to finish my Masters at Columbia.  i was surprised when i went about the city that people stay and shop within a small radius of their apartment (did a study for socially class and it was 7 block radius)  Italians in one area,  Greeks in another , so on and so forth

 

My great grandparents and grandma -at age 2- came to the US thru Canada into Michigan.  i don't think any of them applied for citizenship but if they had ,  the neighbors to talk to would have been all family / great aunts and uncles, and cousins and aunts and uncles.  

 

 

that's true, the people stay within their communities, you'll find people here for decades and barely speak english

they're also good at gaming the system, working off the books and then getting public assistance 

[MMRF 56]

This is going to work amazingly well if you live in a big city like NY and people don't know their neighbors and nobody answers the door for ppl they don't know/aren't expecting. I'm sure the neighbor I complain to management about for smoking weed inside constantly is going to have glowing things to say.

Edited Wednesday at 04:42 PM by MMRF

[Babu Frik 1,185]

6 minutes ago, MMRF said:

This is going to work amazingly well if you live in a big city like NY and people don't know their neighbors and nobody answers the door for ppl they don't know/aren't expecting. I'm sure the neighbor I complain to management about for smoking weed inside constantly is going to have glowing things to say.

most of my neighbors keep to themselves, I don't know what they'd have to say unless like you said we've complained about them.

[LibbyG99 65]

5 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Interesting, but apparently the law actually requires it and it was done though most of the 60's 70's, and 80's.  

 

Hmm, it also says it may look for affidavits for those filing N400's. Maybe this would nullify neighborhood checks.

We were just going to mail in our N-400 application this week, and now I'm thinking we should add some of these affidavits. Do you have an idea where a template can be found for one? 

[JeanneAdil 7,209]

11 minutes ago, LibbyG99 said:

We were just going to mail in our N-400 application this week, and now I'm thinking we should add some of these affidavits. Do you have an idea where a template can be found for one? 

not needed but just google "sample of an affadivit "  on google

 

don't use the one you fill in the name and address (online) but use one of the samples you type up from scratch

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:27 PM by JeanneAdil

[Babu Frik 1,185]

30 minutes ago, LibbyG99 said:

We were just going to mail in our N-400 application this week, and now I'm thinking we should add some of these affidavits. Do you have an idea where a template can be found for one? 

this news just broke yesterday, so I expect in the future we might have some lawyers comment on it to give some more guidance. 
You can upload additional evidence after so this shouldn't hold you up, it'll be a while before they look at everything.