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Travelers crossing U.S. land and sea borders can now replace their passport book with a new passport card.

Federal passport officials started issuing the wallet-size cards on July 14.

More than 450,000 people have applied for the card, said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, at a news conference Monday at the Port of Miami.

"The U.S. passport card is a less expensive and more affordable alternative to the U.S. passport book," Sprague said.

The brand new document — which looks similar to a drivers license — can be used for people returning to the United States from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda. [read more]

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Research shows the circumstances of John McCain's birth don't pass constitutional muster for him to be U.S. president.

A 1937 law granting citizenship to children of U.S. parents in the Panama Canal Zone came too late to apply to McCain, the U.S. senator from Arizona and likely Republican presidential nominee, The New York Times reported. The Constitution requires the president be a "natural-born citizen," but the law made McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. [read more]

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Federal immigration authorities said today that most immigrants who applied for US citizenship during a tidal wave of applications last fiscal year should be sworn in and eligible to vote by the November elections.

A fee hike last year led to a surge in naturalization applications – 1.4 million by September 2007, nearly double the typical amount, triggering concerns that thousands of immigrants wouldn’t obtain citizenship in time to vote.

But US Citizenship and Immigration Services added personnel and extended its hours to speed processing. Now officials say that more than 1 million naturalization applications should be completed by September, including most of those filed last summer. The agency typically approves the vast majority of applicants, rejecting 12 percent to 15 percent a year. [read more]

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In October 2008 a new version of the U.S. citizenship
test will be taken by all applicants. Could you pass it?
The questions are usually selected from a list of 100
samples that prospective citizens can look at ahead of
the interview. Some are easy, some are not. We have
picked some of the more difficult ones.
[read more]

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Over the past decade, several in-depth studies of the naturalization test
revealed concerns with the test’s content, how the test was being administered,
and how it was being scored. To address these concerns, the federal
government launched a test redesign in 2000. In April 2005, the USCIS Office
of Citizenship took over responsibility for this redesign. A panel of adult
education experts affiliated with Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages (TESOL), U.S. history and government scholars, expert test
development contractors, and other external stakeholders provided input
into the redesign. [read more]

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U.S. Hispanic activists laid out plans on Friday to register 2 million new Latino voters to boost the clout of the United States' fastest-growing voter bloc in the November presidential election.[read more]

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To pass the test you must be able to read, write, and speak basic English. You must also have a basic knowledge of U.S. history and government.

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The United States Citizenship Test Study Guide is designed to help applicants study and prepare for the US citizenship test.

It also answers some common questions that most applicants have with regard to the naturalization process.

The US Citizenship Test Study Guide can be used privately, or as a textbook in a course that prepares students for the US citizenship test.

The US Citizenship Test Study Guide is written in simple English so that the content can be understood by people whose English is not yet fluent.

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The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

The USCIS administers the US Citizenship Civics exam.

This is a required step in the naturalization process, and all applicants (with some exceptions) must pass the citizenship test before taking the Oath of Allegiance and officially becoming United States citizens.