Well, my wife and I sent off her N-400 today. She hit year 3 on may 27, but it took us a little bit to sort the paperwork.

I have seen a few other N-400's moving from "check cashed" to "biometrics appointment" within a month or 2. But most of what I saw was California and Texas. Has anyone in the Nebraska area had any response?

We have one small thing in our favor, and that is the fact that the Montana USCIS center has a relatively low declared processing time of 5 months. If anyone has any feedback I would appreciate it.

Is it June already? Somebody tell the weatherman, still cold outside. Been 64 days since we sent our application to good old Nebraska, course they always cash the check quick, sometimes even before we send it. Within ten days later, got a couple of letters the same day, the receipt and biometrics appointment they scheduled for us in Milwaukee April 22, got that done. Last update to our case was on April 5, 2008 and now we are in the twilight zone.

The receipt said to expect to hear from them in 225 days that would put us after the November election, St. Paul claims to be processing N-400's as of October 30, 2007 that should be our field office, but Nebraska sends us to Milwaukee for biometrics. Milwaukee is showing July 18, 2007 and Helena June 27, 2007 so go figure. Did comment when we went to Milwaukee, my wife and I were the only applicants there. Plenty of open parking, parked right smack next to the drop zone, and the armed guards and officers were standing around waiting for someone to come in. But when you read the case status stuff, they are way overloaded. Our 3rd anniversary is the 27th of this month, wonder what our application is doing in Nebraska, is that place real busy too?

The timeline goes by your local office, not Nebraska. We are through Nebraska then on to Cleveland, and Cleveland is one of the faster ones. Good luck.

But doesn't Nebraska have to send your application stack to your local field office first? I really don't make any sense out of this, especially in your case, you live in Cleveland, your case is processed in Cleveland, so why do you send your application to Nebraska? Isn't that quite a bit out of the way? Yeah, I know you are told to send your application to Nebraska. Exactly what does Nebraska do with these applications? In the corporate world, we use computers and video conferencing to save bundles of money on the old fashion airline/hotel route, from my office, I sent stacks of prints, and using the webcam, we can see each other eye to eye, look at the same piece of paper and discuss everything just like being in the same room. But we have to show a profit.

I have the complete N-400 application and all the proof in a folder in my computer in *.pdf format, even the back of the green card in color is crystal clear and readable, could have sent that entire folder in an instant and the USCIS could have put that in their database to be accessed in their own loop by any field office. Just seems to me that Nebraska is a man made bottleneck. Just like where the NW and Edens Expressway merge from three lanes each into four lanes in Chicago, that is a perfect man made bottleneck.

In American production, what's left of it, every operation is timed to the fraction of a second as those seconds add up into hours and time is money, and money is profit. A huge part of our expense is in inventory assessment that has to be done for tax time that also stops production, no wonder why so many companies are moving to China. Even more time is spend with government agency forms, OSHA, EPA, DOT, ERA, etc. Many times had to work Christmas and New Year's eve, and even as a veteran, never got Veterans day off. But we are paying the bills so agencies like the USCIS can take those days off. It just isn't fair. Thought these agencies were suppose to be servants of the people and we are paying their paychecks, but you don't dare tell them that.

The science of tyranny is well established. What we see here by the agencies like TSA and USCIS is "acclimation". Or, getting the people used to the idea of being slaves, or more to the point, treated as slaves.

I noticed this in the Former Soviet Union countries. The people there were totally used to being shoved around, abused, and neglected. It sounds weird to us, the baby boomer types, but to kids 10 years old and younger, they have NEVER known a world before the paranoid insanity of Bush's America.

Anyhow, why do claims go to Nebraska? I think its a financial issue. You simply cant have a massive financial clearinghouse in each state. I assume the money goes to Nebraska, or California, or Texas, or Vermont and the moment the check clears it dumped on the local office and the Service Centers dont care much what happens after that.

Show me the money!

Everything else is petty details to the Imperial Federal Gov't. Thats my 2 cents.

I used to work as an engineering manager with thirty other engineers working under me. Besides my own work, it was my job to check out all the work and progress of the engineers under me. Say it took an engineer well over a month to come up with prints and specifications, the stack of papers put on my desk had to be all neatly organized with all the forms checked off. Would take me approximately an hour to check over all that work, and approve it, better be right because my job was on line.

So who is doing all the work in a perfectly organized manner in say filling out the N-400 plus gathering and all the required proof? And exactly how long does it take an experienced person to check this out? And isn't this the same old routine stuff, is patent infringement involved, what about product liability issues, is this product economically feasible, was the latest technologically used, and do you get Martin King's birthday off? What about inventory over the Christmas, er, excuse me, the holiday season? Oh, and who is paying the bills for all this stuff? Ha, normally was nice to my boss that signed my paycheck.

I hear ya. Im not feelin much love coming from USCIS. Under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and our right to due process, I suggest they change the N-400 to a true "innocent till proven guilty" format. It would look something like this.

Are you still married? (yes) / (no)

End of form.

Ha, was telling my wife about my wicked life and crimes I committed and never got caught. Mom never owned a car, but did buy a 30 Olds when I was 13 to learn how to work on cars, she never knew I got it running and was driving every night, by the time I was old enough to get a license, had 14,000 miles under my belt. But never got caught, knew where the cops hung out. When I turned 21, getting drunk was no longer fun, wasn't a challenge anymore, but sure was fun before I turned 21, never did get caught. Being dead broke and in New Orleans on military pay, I stole food from a street market, but that I felt bad about. Next time there with the same guy running the place, acted like I found a ten dollar bill on the ground and said, this must be yours.

All in all, a pretty boring life, but wonder how I would answer that question.

Yes my aunt had a little white Ford Fiesta back in about 1982. She upgraded to a Cadillac and the Fiesta sat and gathered dust...until I found the keys. I think I drove that little car the whole summer before I got caught my my uncle. Cops never nailed me, and I never drove drunk, but I did learn how to drive a manual transmission!

Half the stuff we did as kids would get you 30 to life in todays Fascist America

You must be some interesting person in real life! - your posts are so thoughtful. Thanks for posting so regularly.

K