Why are there so many illegal immigrants while the U.S Citizens test is only 10 questions long?

I was reading an news article from 2009. The article discussed how
"Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today."

While I read the rest of the article I noticed you only had ten questions and get six answers correct to become a U.S. citizen.

"A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens."

Now it's sorry to see how our children can't pass a simple citizen test.

"About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test."

"Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country."

Here is the complete article.www.globalone.tv...

Now this makes me wonder why are there still so many immigrants in the U.S? This test seems so simple that it wouldn't be that difficult to study for the citizen test.
If you could study for Citizen test. What are your thoughts on the article and about the Citizen test.

list of questions

1. What are the colors of our flag?

2. How many stars are there in our flag?

3. What color are the stars on our flag?

4. What do the stars on the flag mean?

5. How many stripes are there in the flag?

6. What color are the stripes?

7. What do the stripes on the flag mean?

List 1

List 2

[edit on 27-7-2010 by Zeta Reticulan]

Well, this proves our government run schools are doing EXACTLY what they are meant to do.

Teach our children nothing about the history of our country.

But, I bet the children would do good on SOCIAL PROBLEMS that our government is solving everyday. At least the prepared answers that the government would say were correct.

Only LEGAL immigrants can take the citizenship test.

And only after they have been in the country LEGALLY for 5 years (3 if married to a citizen).

Getting LEGAL immigrant status (permanent residency = 'Green Card') is very difficult.

ILLEGAL immigrants are not in the country LEGALLY and are not eligible to take the citizenship test so the length of the test, or the difficulty of the test is not relevant to the problem.

Perhaps this can help you understand the process:



It is indeed sad that American school children no longer learn this stuff very well. It is also sad that American adults don't understand the immigration process before they criticize it.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


For the record, the Citizens Test is there for naturalized citizens and legal residents to become citizens of the United States. There are many routs that citizens of other countries can take to be here legally as a resident alien including work and school visas.

You have to be a permanent resident and live in the US for at least 2 1/2 years of the five-year period or 1 1/2 years of the three-year period if you are married to a U.S. citizen to even consider taking this test.

A legal resident is not an illegal alien.

I understand this is only stated in your topic, however considering the main subject of your post, I thought it best to encourage the knowledge.

Thanks for commenting my thread guys. I guess I should brush up more on how immigration works in the U.S. Thanks again for sharing the information.

reply to post by rnaa


Darn you! You got to it while I was still posting! Legal residents only have to live here half the time though.

And you are correct, it is VERY difficult, especially nowadays to become a legal resident. Citizenship? Thats time consuming to say the least. I have a friend that it took 10 years to even take the test for citizenship.