So what does a person that has just been sworn in as a U.S. citizen have to do next on their check list?   Some people might think that they are done and don't have anything else to do with their new rights in the country but we do, check them out here http://www.newcitizen.us/after.html . The page has very interesting information to new citizens, in other tabs it gives it shows us information about voter registration, dual citizenship, passport information, and more. After getting citizenship, I highly recommend getting a passport they are cheap and they will save you the hassle when you do decide to leave the country on a vacation to visit family.

In the previous articles, I presented information about how to get a green card, citizenship, and how to get naturalized but what do these words mean? In this article by a legal organization http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/difference-between-us-green-card-us-citizenship.html  I present a page that shows us differences between the green card and a U.S. citizen status. Although the green card may allow a worker to stay in the United States, it doesn't allow the person all the rights that a citizen has like voting and being able to leave the country for long periods of time. In the same page we find out that the process of a green card holder to become an United States citizen is called naturalization. We are not provided with a lot of information but if you want to dig a little deeper then you can check here http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/government/civics4.htm . It's interesting that the person that wants to get his papers must stay in the country for 5 years. That requirement must be really hard for someone that had left family in their home country.

All this talk about immigration and I started to wonder "why do people want to immigrate here?" I found three sites that provide different opinions about why people come here. In the first site http://usaimmigration.weebly.com/why-do-people-immigrate-to-the-us.html we see the push and pull factors of why people want to move to the United States. My family came here to this country to look for better paying jobs so it falls under the pull category. Since there is a large population of Latin Americans in the U.S. I searched for a reason why they are moving here and I found this site that might give us the reason http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/18/immigration-latin-america_n_5168356.html . I find it interesting that the United States has intervened in many Latin American countries, did we cause the immigration issue to get worse as a result? In this Canadian site I found more reasons why people immigrate http://www.immigration.net.in/2009/07/09/top-seven-reasons-why-people-immigrate/ . Even though it's a Canadian site, the reasons are the same for immigrants that want to come here to the United States. My family came here to the country for three of those reasons, for a financially secure future, higher standard of living, and to get an education.

In the following posts i'm going to be adding more contents from other sites so that my readers can get some information about some of the history about immigration. The article from the History channel brings some general information about immigration since 1965 http://www.history.com/topics/us-immigration-since-1965 . I find it really interesting how through out the history of the United States, the composition of the immigrants has changed so much. In early US history it was mostly white colonists coming to the country and now the article states that by 2042 the  non-white population will be the majority. Like I mentioned before the site only has general information but if you want a detailed history you can check out http://immigration.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000023 . I really liked the site, it is really detailed and it starts from 1607 up until last year 2014. I find it interesting how there have been some acts that were discriminatory against certain peoples like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

I was Googling images and I found these two very interesting images. The first one shows the origins of legal immigrants in the United States. The largest population of legal immigrants in most states comes from Mexico.

In the second picture, you will notice a more diverse population of legal immigrants. You will see The second largest population comes from the Philippines. 

After presenting the previous information some people might wonder how are they going to take the citizenship test if they haven't practiced. I fortunately found a set of practice questions that will be useful http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/quiz/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test/naturalization-self-test-1 . The practice quiz only has 25 questions, most are easy but I found some to be really challenging. I got a 24/25 on the quiz. Try it out.

I'm the type of person that gets fascinated by facts so I am going to present you to a link that has facts about green cards and permanent residency from the Law Office of Jeffrey O'Brian http://www.obrienimmigration.com/green-cards/ . Something interesting is that an immigrant can marry a United States citizen and get citizen their self if they meet the requirements. Maybe that explains why I had a family friend trying to marry me to her daughter on my last trip out of country?

In the last post, I put up information about how to get a green card. Now I have some information on how to apply for citizenship. I found a good Youtube video that have the five requirements to become a citizen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cewBVV05rTM . I am also going to put the link from the USCIS site where you can start your process http://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship . My recommendation before you even start applying is to write, speak, and read at least basic English. It'll be very helpful in the application process. Another thing that you should be prepared for is for a long process but don't give up.

I was browsing the web a few days ago and I found a very interesting video that shows ways that an individual can get a green card. The information is presented by Attorney Alma Rosa Nieto and the information is recent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVMsxgTYK0M . The video is helpful for anyone using the USCIS website within the "Greencard" section of the site. The website for that section is http://www.uscis.gov/greencard .