Vacation and Possible N400 Interview

[vkrishn 97]

Hello all,

Filed N-400 for wife in July 2019 at SFO.  Estimated time of completion per myuscis is Aug 2020. We are planning to take a 1 week vacation to Europe around August. The processing time of 1yr or the Estimated completion Date have been fairly accurate with respect to SFO field office as my N-400 took about 13 months as well to process and get an interview in 2018. 

 

Questions:

 

1. Not sure if USCIS will schedule the interview in Aug 2020. If they do and if it clashes with our vacation dates can we request an interview schedule change for this reason? 

2. If the interview happens say in June/July, it cuts it close to doing Oath and getting Passport which i expect to take 2-3 months. I got my oath done in 15 days post interview but that was a special oath ceremony for 30 people that does not happen all the time. Typical time i have read from interview approval to Oath is 1 to 1.5 months in SFO Bay area.

 

I am getting reasonable deals for August if i book now so trying to weigh the options i have. Any input is appreciated. 

 

Thanks. 

[Quarknase 1,072]

32 minutes ago, vkrishn said:

Hello all,

Filed N-400 for wife in July 2019 at SFO.  Estimated time of completion per myuscis is Aug 2020. We are planning to take a 1 week vacation to Europe around August. The processing time of 1yr or the Estimated completion Date have been fairly accurate with respect to SFO field office as my N-400 took about 13 months as well to process and get an interview in 2018. 

 

Questions:

 

1. Not sure if USCIS will schedule the interview in Aug 2020. If they do and if it clashes with our vacation dates can we request an interview schedule change for this reason? 

2. If the interview happens say in June/July, it cuts it close to doing Oath and getting Passport which i expect to take 2-3 months. I got my oath done in 15 days post interview but that was a special oath ceremony for 30 people that does not happen all the time. Typical time i have read from interview approval to Oath is 1 to 1.5 months in SFO Bay area.

 

I am getting reasonable deals for August if i book now so trying to weigh the options i have. Any input is appreciated. 

 

Thanks. 

Hi!

I think the interview date itself is not an issue - if you already have an itinerary at the time the interview letter arrives (which you will since you're intending to book now) you can request a re-schedule and provide the itinerary as proof that your wife will be out of the country.

 

The bigger challenge would be if the interview takes place earlier, and the oath ceremony as well. I think if the oath ceremony takes place wile you're away you can re-schedule that as well, but if it gets scheduled for right before your travel you won't have a reasonable request to re-schedule. Are there "emergency passport" places in SFO that you could rely on? And are the processing times for those short enough to risk it?

 

If not I would probably plan on a vacation earlier in the year, or wait until the process has been completed.

 

If you still decide to go for August, it will probably a stressful phase for both of you up until you board the plane. Not sure if it's worth it.

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

In response to above, yes you can get a passport in a day or two in SF if you have proof of travel plans.

But I’m not entirely sure the stress of trying to reschedule/get an emergency passport etc is necessarily worth a few hundred dollars saving. Also be aware that if you reschedule an interview or the ceremony, you don’t have any control over when that rescheduled date is. Some people have ended up waiting months for a rescheduled date. I’d agree with the poster above about either vacationing earlier, or waiting till you have more clarification - once you have an interview date you’ll have a better idea of how long will be left.

 

 

[TimeTravel 78]

Buy an insurance to cancel your trip for any reason, so you will have flexibility to decide whether to continue with your 1 week vacation or cancel the trip at that point. 

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

1 hour ago, TimeTravel said:

Buy an insurance to cancel your trip for any reason, so you will have flexibility to decide whether to continue with your 1 week vacation or cancel the trip at that point. 

Hm, not sure insurance would usually cover a reason like this, would need to carefully check the policy conditions. 

[Canerican 242]

12 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

Hm, not sure insurance would usually cover a reason like this, would need to carefully check the policy conditions. 

 

13 hours ago, TimeTravel said:

Buy an insurance to cancel your trip for any reason, so you will have flexibility to decide whether to continue with your 1 week vacation or cancel the trip at that point. 

I think that the insurance that TimeTravel is mentioning is with the airline. With some airlines and Expedia, etc you can get insurance so that if you have to reschedule your travel you can. Its an extra cost but may be worth it for the OP if they book their flights now. 

Edited December 22, 2019 by CDN(ON)-USA(VT)

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

5 minutes ago, CDN(ON)-USA(VT) said:

 

I think that the insurance that TimeTravel is mentioning is with the airline. With some airlines and Expedia, etc you can get insurance so that if you have to reschedule your travel you can. Its an extra cost but may be worth it for the OP if they book their flights now. 

Again, you need to check the policy, it is often only valid for unexpected and unavoidable reasons for rescheduling, extra cost or no. No idea what the Expedia one is. 

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

This seems to be the one Expedia uses. Pages 3-5 list covered reasons for cancellation/interruption. Nothing looks like it would apply to OP’s case.

 

https://webservices.travelguard.com/Product/FileRetrieval.aspx?CountryCode=US&StateCode=NW&ProductCode=009165&PlanCode=P4&FileType=PROD_PLAN_DOC

 

 

[Moe428 129]

7 hours ago, CDN(ON)-USA(VT) said:

 

I think that the insurance that TimeTravel is mentioning is with the airline. With some airlines and Expedia, etc you can get insurance so that if you have to reschedule your travel you can. Its an extra cost but may be worth it for the OP if they book their flights now. 

 

7 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

This seems to be the one Expedia uses. Pages 3-5 list covered reasons for cancellation/interruption. Nothing looks like it would apply to OP’s case.

 

https://webservices.travelguard.com/Product/FileRetrieval.aspx?CountryCode=US&StateCode=NW&ProductCode=009165&PlanCode=P4&FileType=PROD_PLAN_DOC

 

 

 

There's almost no travel insurance that will cover this scenario.  If you get it with the airline, with your credit card, etc, will not matter.

[vkrishn 97]

Thanks all. We are planning to go mid june for 2 weeks. I am expecting SFO field office to uphold their timelines similar to my N400 experience  and expect them to have interview post July if at all they advance it from august.

 

Wifey and Kid want to make this trip as we haven't taken any vacation for 5 yrs and this is the only time we can actually do it. 

 

Thanks. 

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

On 12/21/2019 at 2:59 PM, vkrishn said:

We are planning to take a 1 week vacation to Europe around August.

 

5 hours ago, vkrishn said:

We are planning to go mid june for 2 weeks

 

Well, the change in timing from August to June will probably solve your potential problems.

[vkrishn 97]

23 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

 

 

Well, the change in timing from August to June will probably solve your potential problems.

If they send out an interview for mid june (miraculously) then we will ask to be rescheduled. We are ok if the Citizenship gets delayed by few months. :-)

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

1 hour ago, vkrishn said:

If they send out an interview for mid june (miraculously) then we will ask to be rescheduled. We are ok if the Citizenship gets delayed by few months. 🙂

...and you’ll hope that that’s all the delay is if it is rescheduled...

[vkrishn 97]

2 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

...and you’ll hope that that’s all the delay is if it is rescheduled...

Whats the worst that could happen? Delay would be 6 months or they would ask us to start from scratch? 

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

3 hours ago, vkrishn said:

Whats the worst that could happen? Delay would be 6 months or they would ask us to start from scratch? 

You only need to start again if you request 2 reschedulings and do not make the second one.

 

it really depends on your FO, some people seem to get rescheduled quickly and others seem to wait for months. The busier the FO/ longer the initial wait, the longer you are likely to wait for a new date as schedules will be full.

Edited December 25, 2019 by SusieQQQ