Are you, too, breathlessly waiting for details of new citizenship criteria determining whether you have the right stuff to be an American?

The updated moral character requirements are sadly short on specifics. It’s almost as though Department of Homeland Security chief Kirsti Noem wants character to be determined by the eye of the beholder, and who knows what Noem wants her immigration agents to behold, other than her evolving closet of military-grade accessories? Personally, I can think of 192 presidential orders, two Epstein file choices and a parade of badly knotted red ties that fail the new screen for “technically lawful” but “inconsistent with civic responsibility.”

Pat Beall is an editorial writer and columnist for the Sun Sentinel, focusing mainly on Palm Beach County issues.

Luckily, we professional snoops have our ways, and I scored a cheat sheet of questions from our new citizenship test.

1. You spy a golf ball wearing a tiny red hat fall from a caddie’s pocket. What is consistent with civic responsibility?

A. Bury it in the closest sand trap, right up to the brim of its little red hat. Run.

B. Quickly shoot a video of you burying it in the closest sand trap up to the brim of its little red hat. Post.

C. Pick it up, wash it off with your last drop of Perrier, dry it on a dress shirt and give it back to the president’s caddie. Genuflect.

The most authentically American thing you could choose is B: head for YouTube and monetize the moment. However, if you chose C, you are in Congress, and Congress not only gets the last laugh these days, it is the entire joke. Thus, the safe bet is C, genuflection, at least until after the swearing-in ceremony.

2. Which of the following forms of documentation best proves your good moral character?

A. Your priest praises you for attending mass; your elderly neighbor sings your praises for taking out her trash; puppies follow you home.

B. Ghislaine Maxwell says so. (It should be right there on your receipt.)

Puppies, as we have previously cautioned, are notoriously bad judges of character and thus poor references. Choose B.

3. Which of the following should keep a red-blooded American citizen up at night?

A. Worrying about people without criminal histories forced into oversized wire “kennels” in the Everglades, where they sleep under leaking tents near sewage, their medical needs neglected and their legal rights ignored.

B. Worrying about the people who think that’s what Jesus would have done, when in fact that’s where Jesus would have slept.

C. Pink chalk on sidewalks.

Ah, chalk, the searing moral issue of our time. Further, should a prospective American citizen be seen with politically incorrect dust on their soles, it will be factored into Newfound Consideration 113(a): Does your behavior reflect community standards? Of course, if your colorful shoe dust comes from redrawing erased Pride symbols on Orlando roadways, it probably does, because someone had to call in the cops to keep that community of scribbling hordes at bay.

4. Finally, in keeping with a new emphasis on civics, which is the better source of political information:

A. Trump’s Truth Social AI, which says the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.

B. Google’s Gemini AI, which says the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.

C. Sam’s House of Chatbot and Chainsaw Repair, which says the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.

D. Your third cousin’s brother-in-law’s Uncle Vlad, who reports on his 40-day-old Facebook page with two followers in the Azores that he has done his own research and the election was a total rob job. Cash hidden in bags of chips was passed to an email server owned by Bill R. Lee, which almost rhymes with Hillary.

Just kidding! The potato chip cash was passed to a reporter. And it was during this year’s New York mayoral election, not 2020. But if you chose D, congratulations! You are of a mind with the least-American citizen of us all about the biggest political lie of them all, and if that doesn’t get you a green light for a green card, I don’t know what will.

Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. Contact her at beall.news@gmail.com.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/08/26/new-citizenship-criteria-for-a-new-america-pat-beall/