We’ve come a long way from millions coming through Ellis Island to take their chance at achieving the American Dream. Now immigrants tend to swarm across our southern border or overstay their legally acquired visas, figuring it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. In the case of our current administration, forgiveness is easy to come by and permission may not be far behind.

A news item nearly lost in the holiday bustle was last week’s announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that the agency plans to “improve and update” the longstanding test legal immigrants take to gain American citizenship. It’s a somewhat stressful exam that only requires getting six of 10 questions correct, but currently it’s given orally with oral responses required by the applicant, meaning those seeking citizenship must be able to understand spoken English. One change on that front proposed by the USCIS would require applicants to review and describe three color photographs having to do with food, activities, or the weather.

Watering down the exam will be the introduction of multiple-choice questions for the civics portion of the test. Giving an applicant four multiple-choice options for a question on a tablet will at least verify they can read English — assuming, of course, bureaucrats don’t further tinker with the test by putting it in the applicant’s native tongue. Regardless, the change will also likely jog the test taker’s memory enough to make the exam easier. Added the USCIS, “The trial test will also contain new test items based on a design framework that includes an external review by subject matter experts in the field of test development.”

A trial run of this process will begin in 2023, with the new exams proposed to be ready by late 2024 — just in time for the election, no doubt.

On the other hand, before the 2020 election toppled his presidency, President Donald Trump was looking to make the citizenship exam more of a challenge, expanding the quiz to 20 questions (requiring 12 correct) and adding content based on American history. “The Trump administration’s version of the test contained additional questions about Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as well as questions about the Civil War, the spread of communism, the 14th Amendment and the War on Terror, among others,” reported The Daily Caller.

Given how tough it is for those who were born here to answer previous iterations of the exam — an embarrassing fact we detailed awhile back — it’s no wonder the Biden administration wanted new immigrants to have the same lack of understanding of our system that most of the natives do. Thus, Team Biden immediately scrapped the Trump exam and is trying to make it even easier.

While all of us have God-given rights, it’s a privilege for the non-native born to receive the guarantees from our Constitution and Bill of Rights that Americans enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with making prospective Americans invest sweat and effort to become citizens because we believe it makes them take being an American more seriously — some of the most patriotic Americans are the immigrants who had to earn their citizenship as they developed an understanding of why America is a success.

Joe Biden doesn’t want being a citizen to have such a meaning. After all, when they’re used to not having rights, they’ll feel right at home with a corruptocrat government that supplies just enough of their needs to keep them dependent but not enough liberty so they can succeed at attaining the American Dream. That’s why he’ll hand out citizenship like candy.