You have probably heard that USCIS is doing neighborhood investigations again for citizenship applicants. Asking around where you live. Asking where you work.
Most of what has been written about it stops there, and leaves people feeling like there is nothing to do but wait and hope.
That is not what the current guidance says.
The Short Answer
USCIS may waive the neighborhood investigation, and its own guidance says it takes character reference letters into account when deciding whether to.
Here is the guidance in its own words:
“Provides USCIS may waive a neighborhood investigation, at its discretion, if USCIS determines that the waiver of the investigation is appropriate in a particular case or classes of cases.”
And, on the letters:
“Provides aliens applying for naturalization may voluntarily provide testimonial or character reference letters preferably from U.S. citizens who are not family members who attest to the alien’s eligibility, character, loyalty to the United States and attachment to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and other naturalization requirements.”
And, connecting the two:
“Provides USCIS takes into consideration voluntarily provided testimonials or character reference letters in determining whether to waive a neighborhood investigation.“
Read those three together. The investigation is discretionary. The letters are voluntary. And the agency says the letters factor into the decision.
Nobody can promise you a waiver, and we are not going to. The guidance says may, and discretion means discretion. What it does mean is that this is not something that simply happens to you.
What the Letters Need to Address
The guidance names four things. Build every letter around them rather than around general praise.
- Your eligibility for naturalization
- Your character
- Your loyalty to the United States
- Your attachment to the principles of the U.S. Constitution
A letter that says you are a nice person and a hard worker is a kind letter. A letter that speaks to those four things is a useful one.
Who Should Write Them
The guidance states a preference plainly: U.S. citizens who are not family members.
That rules out the people most applicants would ask first, which is the whole reason this page exists. Your spouse, your children, your brother, all of them love you and none of them is who the guidance points to.
Think instead about the people who have watched you live your life from the outside:
- An employer or a supervisor, especially one who has known you for years
- A pastor, a priest, or someone from your congregation
- A teacher or a school administrator who knows you through your children
- A coach, a team parent, a volunteer coordinator
- A community leader, a neighbor, a longtime customer or client
In West Texas and eastern New Mexico these relationships are real and they are documentable. The person who has known you for eleven years through your kids’ school is exactly the kind of writer the guidance is describing.
What Not to Do
Do not hand someone a template and ask them to sign it. A stack of identical letters reads as what it is, and it is worse than no letters at all.
Do not ask for a letter that says something the writer does not actually know. A letter that overstates gets read as an overstatement of everything else.
Do not use this as a substitute for the rest of the case. Letters address character and community. They do not answer a question about an arrest, a long trip, a tax year, or a voter registration. Those are separate problems with separate answers: the situations that mean do not file this alone.
And One Thing to Know About the Investigation Itself
If an investigation does happen in your case, nobody tells you. The investigator’s duty to identify himself and explain the inquiry runs to the person being interviewed, not to you. What protects you comes after: if USCIS intends to deny your case on something it turned up, it must give you notice and a chance to answer.
That is worth knowing before someone comes to your door rather than after, and it is a fact almost no coverage of this includes.
Why We Publish This Instead of Keeping It
Because this is the difference between a frightening policy and something a family can prepare for.
We build this package as part of every citizenship case we file. We know who in a person’s life is likely to write a strong letter, what the letter has to address, and how to assemble it without it reading like a form.
But the facts on this page belong to anyone who needs them, whether they hire a lawyer or not.
If your case is weak, you hear it from us first. If there is risk, you know before anything is filed. If there is a path, you get a plan built around it.
Start Building Your Package Before You File
The best letters come from people who have known you a long time and are given enough time to write something real.
That work belongs before the application goes in, not after.
Talk it through with a bilingual team member. Bring a list of the people in your life who have known you longest.
Law Office of Gilda McDowell. Serving families across West Texas and eastern New Mexico.
This page explains how the naturalization process works. It is not legal advice about your case, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Nothing here promises a waiver or any other outcome; USCIS decides these questions at its discretion. Policy in this area changed in 2025 and continues to change. Everything here was verified against the primary sources on August 28, 2026.