n-400 N-400 2017 - Longer wait as SO MANY have applied for Naturalization in a short time?

[Paul & Lu 1]

Two questions:

 

Firstly the news has been that so many more permanent residents have applied for naturalization recently. People who had stayed with permanent residency for years have now applied for citizenship to secure their status in the US. My question is does anyone know how this is affecting the waiting times. Government guidelines are for a 5 month process. Any ideas, thoughts or experiences on if that 5 months is going to be much longer? [I applied March 1st and have my biometrics on March 31st].

 

Secondly: As I live on the Central Coast, near San Luis Obispo, CA my local field office is San Fernando Valley. None of the VisaJourney drop downs feature or mention San Fernando 
Valley Field Office. Is this just an oversight by VisaJourney? 

 

Thanks in advance for all replies. I appreciate the site.

[TBoneTX 43,391]

Thread is moved from the US Citizenship main forum to the Case Progress subforum.

[STIG 5]

1 hour ago, Paul & Lu said:

Two questions:

 

Firstly the news has been that so many more permanent residents have applied for naturalization recently. People who had stayed with permanent residency for years have now applied for citizenship to secure their status in the US. My question is does anyone know how this is affecting the waiting times. Government guidelines are for a 5 month process. Any ideas, thoughts or experiences on if that 5 months is going to be much longer? [I applied March 1st and have my biometrics on March 31st].

 

Secondly: As I live on the Central Coast, near San Luis Obispo, CA my local field office is San Fernando Valley. None of the VisaJourney drop downs feature or mention San Fernando 
Valley Field Office. Is this just an oversight by VisaJourney? 

 

Thanks in advance for all replies. I appreciate the site.

The geniuses at USCIS rolled out a brand new system for processing Nat cases in April last year. The problem was that they had not performed any UAT on the new system before roll-out and the system implementation has been an absolutely disaster resulting in a substantial slowdown in the time it times to process cases due to the system bugs. It was so bad, that they reverted back to the old system for all filers after August, but all the April to Aug applications have gotten backlogged and delayed everything. Not one FO is processing cases within 5 months now, and most are now taking 7 - 10 months, with some FOs such as Houston and St Paul taking even longer than 10 months. My FO used to take 6 - 7 months on average, yet it will be 10 months from filing date to oath for me.

[ChristianZane 70]

1 hour ago, Paul & Lu said:

Two questions:

 

Firstly the news has been that so many more permanent residents have applied for naturalization recently. People who had stayed with permanent residency for years have now applied for citizenship to secure their status in the US. My question is does anyone know how this is affecting the waiting times. Government guidelines are for a 5 month process. Any ideas, thoughts or experiences on if that 5 months is going to be much longer? [I applied March 1st and have my biometrics on March 31st].

 

Secondly: As I live on the Central Coast, near San Luis Obispo, CA my local field office is San Fernando Valley. None of the VisaJourney drop downs feature or mention San Fernando 
Valley Field Office. Is this just an oversight by VisaJourney? 

 

Thanks in advance for all replies. I appreciate the site.

At current pace, expect to get an approval letter for an interview date in about 7-8 months from your priority date.

[Paul & Lu 1]

Priority Date? The date I filed (March 2nd)... I filed the 90 days earlier so I become eligible on May 29th... So 7-8 months from March 2nd.. October / November?

 

Do you know how much difference the increase in applications recently has made to all of this? Thanks

[Heading2VietNam 6]

9 hours ago, STIG said:

The geniuses at USCIS rolled out a brand new system for processing Nat cases in April last year. The problem was that they had not performed any UAT on the new system before roll-out and the system implementation has been an absolutely disaster resulting in a substantial slowdown in the time it times to process cases due to the system bugs. It was so bad, that they reverted back to the old system for all filers after August, but all the April to Aug applications have gotten backlogged and delayed everything. Not one FO is processing cases within 5 months now, and most are now taking 7 - 10 months, with some FOs such as Houston and St Paul taking even longer than 10 months. My FO used to take 6 - 7 months on average, yet it will be 10 months from filing date to oath for me.

I wouldn't say that there isn't one field office processing cases within 5 months.  The Indianapolis, IN field office just sent me a text message on Monday 3-20-17 to inform us that my wife's interview is scheduled, we are just waiting on the letter to come in the mail to get an exact date.  If it's anything like the other 3 Indianapolis VJ members that filed close to the date I did, then our interview should be between 4-17-17 - 4-28-17.   Just about 10 weeks from when they received our N-400 packet till the date of our interview.  Add 3 to 4 weeks for the oath ceremony, that could possibly put us just a little over 3 months from our NOA to citizenship.

[mustang-sally 8]

14 minutes ago, Heading2VietNam said:

I wouldn't say that there isn't one field office processing cases within 5 months.  The Indianapolis, IN field office just sent me a text message on Monday 3-20-17 to inform us that my wife's interview is scheduled, we are just waiting on the letter to come in the mail to get an exact date.  If it's anything like the other 3 Indianapolis VJ members that filed close to the date I did, then our interview should be between 4-17-17 - 4-28-17.   Just about 10 weeks from when they received our N-400 packet till the date of our interview.  Add 3 to 4 weeks for the oath ceremony, that could possibly put us just a little over 3 months from our NOA to citizenship.

My field office was St Paul, Minnesota, the office with the slowest date!! 

The date on my NOA was 12/02/2016 and my interview and same day oath ceremony was 03/16/2017, just 15 weeks from start to finish. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by mustang-sally

[ChristianZane 70]

10 hours ago, Paul & Lu said:

Priority Date? The date I filed (March 2nd)... I filed the 90 days earlier so I become eligible on May 29th... So 7-8 months from March 2nd.. October / November?

 

Do you know how much difference the increase in applications recently has made to all of this? Thanks

Your priority date is listed on the Notice of Action NOA letter they sent you in March.  So if your NOA date for instance is March 10, you can expect to get an interview acceptance letter for Phoenix field office around November 20th according to their processing time chart.  I would ignore a lot of the fluke quickie N400 applications from the smaller cities in the mid-west or north west, if you live near a major metropolitan I would expect 7-8 month waits for an interview acceptance letter, I applied on August 10 and received my letter on March 13, exactly as it said on the USCIS processing page chart for LA.

[discoverusa 233]

My application took 8 months from start to finish. Hartford, CT office. I sent an application at the beginning of June and was done on January 20.

[Francis&Rezza 0]

Some area was just so lucky. I filed mine May 2016 had my Interview December 2016 and im still waiting for my Oath..