USCIS announced that it has begun issuing a redesigned, security enhanced Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550) as part of its ongoing efforts to enhance the integrity of the immigration system.  The agency anticipates that over 600,000 new citizens will receive the enhanced certificate over the next year.

Here’s Q&A on the new Certificate, and here is a close-up image of the new certificate.

The previous Certificates featured hard-copy photos of the candidates.  The redesigned certificate features the naturalization candidate’s digitized photo and signature embedded into the base document.  Eliminating the requirement to affix the hard-copy photo and hand-stamp the USCIS director’s signature cuts cost in man-hours and improves security.

USCIS also changed the wording to better reflect the current provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.  In particular, obsolete language stating that the candidate resides in the US and “intends to reside in the US when so required by the Naturalization laws of the USA” has been removed.  These changes affect the form of the certificate only and do not alter any legal requirements for naturalization or USCIS application processing.