Trump administration to change US citizenship test

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to change the questions on the U.S. citizenship test, according to the Washington Post.

Here's what we know

The new and updated test will take effect before President Donald Trump's first term ends in 2020, the Post reported.

The test is updated by the executive branch of the government periodically, so this change is not unprecedented. Questions for the citizenship test will be publicly available once they're finalized so that applicants can study them. Each test is made up of a selection of these questions.

The civics portion of the current test includes 100 questions covering topics, including "What is the supreme law of the land?" "What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?" "How many U.S. Senators are there?" and "Why do some states have more Representatives than other states?"

The last update to the test came in 2008.

Critics pointed to Trump's statements on illegal immigration and limiting refugee admissions, and worried that his administration might alter the citizenship test in a way that would make it more difficult to pass. However, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli dismissed these fears.

"Isn't everybody always paranoid that this is used for ulterior purposes?" Cuccinelli told the Washington Post. "Of course, they're going to be sorely disappointed when it just looks like another version of a civics exam. I mean that's pretty much how it's going to look."

What else?

Cuccinelli said that the government needed "to freshen the material" and that this might entail pulling "questions from 2000 and 2008" instead of creating new ones.