Earlier this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a notice regarding the form used to verify honorable military service in relation to naturalization. Form N-426, the Request for Certification of Military or Naval Service is used to verify the military/naval service of non-citizens applying for naturalization based on their participation in the U.S. armed forces. This form is commonly filled out incorrectly or incomplete; USCIS conducted extensive research into the reasons for these issues and have amended the form accordingly. Changes to the form, according to USCIS, will help members of the armed forces more easily and efficiently request naturalization based on their participation in the military.

Major changes to the form include reducing its length to one page, adding phone number and e-mail address fields so that USCIS representatives will have additional methods to contact applicants and/or their certifying officials, replacing certain confusing questions with Yes/No questions and adding a help line number to the USCIS military help line.

Since September 11, 2001, USCIS has naturalized over 47,500 members of the U.S. armed forces. Roughly 750 new applications for this category are received each month.