Next week the Department of Homeland Security will mark Citizenship day by making public a new Oath of Allegiance and unveiling a new Office of Citizenship. The oath will lose archaic lines such as those requiring immigrants to renounce loyalty to "princes and potentates." The government will revise it in a way that will, as Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Eduardo Aguirre Jr. put it, "make more sense to the brain."

The oath is "being recrafted so it has more meaning to those who are raising their right hand and swearing" to it, Aguirre said.

Officials have released only a few details of the rewrite, during a panel discussion that included Aguirre. However, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has learned from unnamed sources in the administration that the changes to the oath will follow recommendations offered by the US Commission on Immigration Reform in the mid-1990s, which gathered on the grounds that the current oath, dating back to 1952, contains dated language.

According to the CIS, the changes will be issued as an interim rule in the Federal Register and will be made effective September 17, bypassing the normal review process by the Office of Management and Budget and the sixty-day comment period, in order to avoid a delay that "would be contrary to the public interest."

The new Oath of Allegiance obtained by CIS reads as follows: Solemnly, freely, and without any mental reservation, I hereby renounce under oath all allegiance to any foreign state. My fidelity and allegiance from this day forward is to the United States of America. I pledge to support, honor, and be loyal to the United States, its Constitution and laws. Where and if lawfully required, I further commit myself to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, either by military, noncombatant, or civilian service. This I do solemnly swear, so help me God.