The United States asks would-be citizens to demonstrate knowledge of its history and government, usually after years of residence. The official USCIS naturalization process places English and civics testing near the end of the journey, followed by an oath. There is a perfectly defensible logic to that sequence: citizenship is an important legal change, and a republic may ask applicants to understand its institutions. Yet it conceals a political weakness. A person may spend a substantial part of adult life living and working under a country’s laws long before taking any citizenship exam—or may never seek naturalization at all. If civic integration matters only when a passport is within reach, an essential period of common life remains without a coherent public account of what participation requires. The question is not whether America should abolish its test. It is whether passing a test can stand in for the responsibilities accumulated before it.
This is a different question from the one addressed in the earlier ReImmigrazione.com analysis, “L’Accordo di integrazione tra firma e percorso: accompagnare prima di verificare” (September 25, 2026). That article argued that a signature at entry and a review at the end cannot explain what happened between them. The American comparison moves the reasoning forward: even a rigorous final examination is not a substitute for a durable relationship between lawful residence and civic responsibility. The issue is larger than administering forms. A polity makes a strategic choice when it regards residents predominantly as workers and reserves discussion of common institutions for the minority who later apply for citizenship. Integration then appears as a ceremony’s prerequisite rather than the political purpose of a migration system. This argument does not deny the many educational and civic initiatives that exist in American communities; it challenges the tendency to confuse a final legal qualification with an entire social process.
The Italian proposal called “Integrazione o ReImmigrazione” offers an illuminating, but not automatically transferable, alternative. In the October 10, 2026 conference text, the existing Integration Agreement is treated not merely as an entry form but as a proposed continuing record of individual conduct and development. There is an actual institution behind the idea: Italy’s Presidential Decree 179 of September 14, 2011, implementing Article 4-bis of Legislative Decree 286/1998, regulates an agreement for specified categories of first-time non-EU entrants. The Italian Interior Ministry describes language learning, civic knowledge, credits and review. What already exists must not be confused with what is being advocated: a continuing, more consequential record of a person’s integrative trajectory is a proposed reform, not the current universal legal status of every foreign resident.
The political claim behind that reform is more demanding than a citizenship quiz. It is that lawful newcomers should be regarded as responsible participants in a common civic order from the beginning, not as a labor supply awaiting eventual cultural assimilation. The proposed assessment combines actual work, command of the common language and respect for enforceable rules, while recognizing that none alone tells the full story. An employment contract does not establish acceptance of the legal order; linguistic fluency does not guarantee civic conduct; and the absence of a job after a layoff is not proof of rejection. The individual who has the means to attend a legitimate language course and knowingly refuses it presents a different problem from someone who tries but encounters a documented obstacle. The state must define obligations and make legally required opportunities accessible, but cannot perform the individual’s acts of participation. In this sense, the model centers personal responsibility without making economic success or ancestry a substitute for evidence.
For an American audience, the sharpest insight concerns the timing of political membership. Naturalization confers citizenship, but participation in daily civic life does not begin at the oath ceremony. Residents navigate schools, workplaces, courts, neighborhoods and public institutions while retaining different legal statuses and rights. A coherent approach would make reasonable, knowable expectations part of that earlier experience, rather than discovering years later whether an applicant has memorized a constitutional fact. The United States already distinguishes naturalization from immigration admission: 8 U.S.C. § 1448 specifies a formal oath for those becoming citizens; it does not impose that naturalization oath on every visa holder. The Italian framework is therefore a lens for comparison, not a description of American law and not a proposal to treat noncitizens as citizens before the law. The challenge is to connect lawful residence with individual civic conduct while preserving these distinctions.
A serious objection is that a continuing integration assessment could become a loyalty test. The objection is not trivial, particularly in a nation whose First Amendment protects expression and religion. A political system must not condition residence on approval of a governing party, a prescribed interpretation of history or abandonment of lawful faith. A resident may oppose a government policy, organize a peaceful protest or criticize national institutions without that disagreement becoming evidence of deficient integration. Nor may the state turn a person’s surname, faith or family origin into a proxy for conduct. But the opposite principle also matters: disagreement with a law is not, by itself, immunity from duties that validly apply. The distinction between contested beliefs and demonstrable conduct is what makes the concept of civic integration defensible. If it cannot be drawn precisely, the proposed verification loses legitimacy and turns from civic order into ideological surveillance.
Legal design must accordingly come before consequences. Italy’s existing Integration Agreement applies only within its statutory scope; its protections and exceptions cannot be displaced by a sweeping slogan. Any expansion would require legislation, individualized decisions and judicial remedies, and would remain constrained by the Italian Constitution, European human-rights law and the applicable European Union framework. Refugees, family members, long-term residents and citizens do not occupy interchangeable legal positions. Nor does a negative indicator automatically authorize removal: protection against refoulement and the rights to private and family life remain substantial constraints. The American constitutional context has its own distinct guarantees, and there is no ready-made authority for importing an Italian integration contract into U.S. immigration law. These limits are not a reason to abandon individual responsibility; they are the rules that distinguish an enforceable reform from an unsupported demand for collective conformity.
A citizenship exam can establish whether an applicant knows certain public facts. It cannot, by its nature, reconstruct the ethical and legal relationship formed over many years of residence. That is the additional idea this comparison contributes to the ReImmigrazione.com discussion: integration should be a continuous responsibility of lawful residence, while citizenship remains a distinct legal threshold. The proper ambition is not to make everyone pass the same identity test or to treat citizenship as perpetually revocable. It is to define concrete and proportionate duties at stages where the law permits them, evaluate each person on evidence rather than origin, and recognize successful integration through appropriate stability. A republic that waits until the final ceremony to speak of common civic responsibilities has begun that conversation very late. A republic that starts it early, fairly and within the law has a better chance of turning immigration into durable membership rather than an endless argument over arrivals.
Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Attorney admitted to practice before the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation
Registered representative of interests with the Italian Chamber of Deputies in the field of Immigration
Registered lobbyist in the European Union Transparency Register No. 280782895721-36 in the field of Migration and Asylum
ORCID: 0009-0004-7030-0428
Article prepared with the assistance of AI tools, under the direction, review and editorial responsibility of the author.
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