U.S. Citizenship

Summary
This lesson is about US citizenship and how it may be achieved.

Objectives
• to list the ways that people can become US citizens;

• to describe the naturalization process;

• to identify the function and characteristics of a green card;

• to list some of the things that the oath of citizenship requires and individual to do.

Suggested Grades
4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade

Excerpt
The Constitution of the United States is designed to protect the rights and welfare of all the people in the United States. There are differences between the rights of US citizens and the rights of residents and visitors to the USA.

There are three different ways that a person can become a citizen of the United States:

1. The law of the soil;
2. 2. The law of the blood;
3. 3. The process of naturalization.

The law of the soil means that anyone who is born in the United States or one of its territories automatically becomes a US citizen at birth. This is the way in which most people become citizens. The law of the soil gives citizenship to everyone born in the United States, even if his or her parents are visitors or immigrants who are not citizens. The only exception to the law of the soil is in the case of children who are born to foreign diplomats or on ships that are traveling in American waters.

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