Joon

All done. Naturalized this afternoon under the Space Needle along with 560 others. Took my oath, collected my certificate, registered to vote. Working on my passport application right now.

I believe the only thing left now is to wait 10 days then head to the social security office and update my status with them.

So yeah, I'm now an Anglo-American.

Congratulations to the others who naturalized today. Thanks to everyone else on Visa Journey, this has been an invaluable resource from the moment my wife and I started dating, through the K1 process, AoS, and now rampant flag waving and hot dog eating.

So I had my interview back on 5/24. My oath ceremony is 7/4. When I check my status online it still shows as "Interview Scheduled."

Is that normal?

So I arrived about 35 minutes before my appointment time at the Seattle office. Had a bit of a wait in line to get checked in. Took about 15 minutes. Once checked in I went upstairs to the waiting area. My appointment was for 11, and at about 11:05 I got called back for my interview.

The guy interviewing seemed a bit of a hardass. I tried to be pleasant, asked how his day was going, and he didn't care for it. Down to business. 

Before we started reviewing my application I was told that the next available oath ceremony was July 4th. I asked about the same-day ceremonies I had read about. He told me that they happen, but today's was full and that the earlier appointments will usually be able to do it (7am-9am). But for me, my option was take the July 4th ceremony (actually a very nice ceremony done outdoors by the Space Needle every 4th of July) or request a different time and they'd assign me one that was next available. No further information.

We start to review my application. Next hiccup; I had requested a name change with my application. He told me they didn't do it there. I'd need to do it on my own with a judge, as anyone else would do. Fair enough.

We went through the application. It was all pretty serious but fast moving. We get to the yes/no portion of the application. I have outstanding federal taxes. I showed him the documentation I had (tax returns and payment plans, etc) showing that it was being taken care of. He seemed satisfied.

The test portion was predicable and easy. 6 out of 6 on the civics. English tests obviously weren't a problem.

He informed me that he was going to approve my application but only because I had provided the tax documentation. He had planned to on not approving before I supplied that. But I suppose that's the point of these interviews, right?

Provided me with a document saying that he was recommending my application be approved (but I'm a little concerned about the wording) and gave me details for the 4th of July oath ceremony.

He's still in a bad mood at this point. Ushers me out. 

Mixed emotions at this point. Grumpy agent was a bit of a downer but not the end of the world. Pretty disappointed I didn't get my oath ceremony today. From what I had been reading it seemed like everyone going through the Seattle office does their oath the same day. All I'v got instead is an N-652 form that isn't in any way signed or stamped, and contains the phrase:

Quote

Congratulations! Your application has been recommended for approval. At this time, it appears you have established your eligibility for naturalization. If final approval is granted, you will be notified when and where to report for the Oath Ceremony. [emphasis mine]

I didn't even realize there was another step after this? I thought the interview was to check things over, get it all stamped and done? In my mind, I had thought it would be all over today. But from reading this thing it sounds like I'm not even officially approved yet.

I've also got an N-445 (Notice of Naturalization Oath Ceremony) form with the time, date, and location, which maybe negates the "IF" on the other form? I don't know.

Is this standard? My gut tells me they are delaying the oath because they plan to hit me with an RFE that they didn't want to talk to me about, for whatever reason. But I might just be paranoid? 

All in all, relieved it got approved. Bummed I've still got more to do before I'm a citizen. 

8 minutes ago, Joon said:

I can see that of all the filers who had their interviews in Seattle, they also had their oath ceremony on the same day. 

I have my interview this coming Wednesday. Should I expect to have my oath ceremony too or is that something I should have requested up front or only available in special cases?

Answering my own question, I found this thread:
 

I guess the answer is: "It depends, but quite likely I can do the same day oath ceremony."

 

I can see that of all the filers who had their interviews in Seattle, they also had their oath ceremony on the same day. 

I have my interview this coming Wednesday. Should I expect to have my oath ceremony too or is that something I should have requested up front or only available in special cases?

On 4/21/2017 at 7:13 PM, NikC said:

Did your online status changed to Interview scheduled ? if yes then how many days after the status change you received interview letter ? Thanks

I had stopped checking it, but checking it just now it says:

"On April 14, 2017, we scheduled an interview for your Form N-400..."

April 14th is 6 days before I received the letter in the mail. Although, the letter itself is dated April 17th, 3 days before it arrived.

Update me...

 

Joon...........|11/27/12.|11/16.|11/22.|11/25.|12/23/16|01/04/17.|04/20/17.|05/24/17.|--/--/--.|Seattle, WA

You can add my progress to the list, too.

UserName.......|GC-Date..|Sent..|Cashd.|NOA...|Fprints.|In Line..|Int ltr..|Intrview.|Oath.....|Field Office

Joon...........|11/27/12.|11/16.|11/22.|11/25.|12/23/16|01/04/17.|--/--/--.|--/--/--.|--/--/--.|Seattle, WA


Thanks,
Chris

I just wanted to throw out that we asked for an expedited interview date on our cover letter when sending in our Packet 3 documents, and I believe it worked. There's no way to know for sure, but we sent our Packet 3 in on 6/9/12 and when we called the embassy today (6/22) they said the letter was on it's way for a 7/12 interview date. A month from Packet 3 sent to interview date seems pretty fast. We didn't have a wedding date, but I am expecting, and my fiance mentioned he'd like to be in the states by the end of July in his cover letter. It appears they are helping us make that happen. :)We may have just been lucky, there's no way to know, but I think it's further proof that it *can* (not WILL) make a difference.

When I have questions I look for your answers first (lol!). You really know your stuff and give thorough answers, which I need and appreciate.

Very much agreed!!

Too late to worry about the medical arriving before the case file. Get the forms filled out and the minute you know London has logged the case, mail them.

Don't forget there is a cover letter that goes with the DS-2001 asking for certain information from him. That's a good place to mention you are in a hurry because of pregnancy and he would like to travel as soon as possible.

You can call DOS in the US and find out when the case is logged. The letter contains nothing important. Dan posted a copy of it in this thread. All you need to know is on the embassy website.

Paying does not in any way speed up the interview.

As an update and an FYI for anyone who falls into the same situation - the embassy did receive our medical results well before our packet from the NVC - by a couple of weeks. When we got confirmation they had received our docs from the NVC (but hadn't loaded them all into the system yet) the embassy said they weren't showing our medical results in the system. However, when we called today all of our paperwork from the NVC was loaded into the system, and so was the medical. I'm thinking maybe they won't load the medical in until they have an I129F application to go with it. Not an ideal way to approach, I'm thinking (we're lucky the embassy didn't lose the results in the shuffled and set us back a week or more having to have them re-sent from Knightsbridge), but we seem to have fared okay.

We sent our Packet 3 info (it arrived Monday per the signature received), along with the cover letter with mention of the pregnancy as you suggested. Hopefully we'll have luck with that. We'll see! Thank you again for your help!

Another couple of notes:

We called the NVC on 6/1 and they said they had sent out our package "yesterday". However, no DHL packages left the NVC for London on 5/31. One did leave on 6/1, so we started tracking that.

Today (6/7) I received a letter in the mail from the NVC saying that our package had been forwarded to the embassy, and it was dated 6/1. We never received an email, despite them telling us they'd send the notification by email, and them confirming both of our email addresses every time we called in during our 2 week wait in AP.

DHL shows our package arrived 6/6, but I'm guessing it won't show in the system until next week because of the back up from them being closed for the Queen's Jubilee. We'll see!

Just to be more clear---

...to reach them 3-4 days after the medical exam date because that's how long it takes the medical results to arrive. Thus the medical results and the DS-2001 reach the embassy around the same time.

A couple of things:

As you may remember from another thread we posted that you responded to (thank you so much!), we thought we could do our medical as soon as we had an LND number (but before it was sent out to the embassy - oops), so my fiance did that, but then the case got held at the NVC for 2 weeks. The case is on it's way to the embassy now (it should get there after the Queen's Jubilee is over and the embassy opens up next week), but my worry is that the medical results have already been there, but our packet 3 forms won't be for a while still. Should I worry that the medical results will be there so much sooner than we are able to send back our Packet 3 forms?

Then, to clarify (so we don't bungle the timing up further), we can send our Packet 3 info (we have everything for our interview ready) as soon as the embassy confirms they've received our case, we don't have to wait for the letter/email? We just send in the documents as if we've received it? Then we can pay for the visa (what I'm reading here leads me to believe that can help us get an earlier interview date) and wait for our letter?

Sorry to be so geeked out about this, but I'm expecting and we'd like daddy home ASAP so we want to move quickly but our margin for error is pretty small. Thanks so much!

I hope they get it forwarded soon for you!

We called in this morning and they said it had been sent yesterday! 2 weeks to the day.

YAY Great news!! Time to move on to the next stages! WOOHOO!!

Thank you! And congrats on the upcoming wedding, just a couple of weeks to go!

I'm not really one to post our progress in a forum post but I thought it might be helpful for people who were in our position. Our I-129F was approved May 2nd, and received by the NVC on May 17th, but then it got stuck there. I called everyday about our status, and people of varying levels of politeness gave several different terms in regards to why it was held up:

Administrative Processing

Administrative Review

Additional Processing

Additional Review

But they all said the same thing: "Unfortunately there is not a time window for this process." Which of course equates to "Welcome to another black hole of time and patience. Sit back and enjoy the ride". Sigh.

We called this morning to check on the status and they said it had gone out yesterday, which would make our wait exactly 2 weeks. In fairness though, that 2 weeks includes 1 regular weekend, and 1 long weekend (Memorial Day) when they would have been closed. 9 business days, I guess. Seems like an eternity though, doesn't it?

Another thing I wanted to mention into the ether of information here is that I was a little nervous it would be sent back to CSC. I know this is pretty rare, but it does happen. I was nervous because in my research here at VJ (LOVE this site!) I found that some of the stuff we had sent in with our I-129F application were things that we could get RFEs for. For instance, my divorce decree had a stamp instead of a judge's signature. Also, the G-325 for my fiance (the beneficiary) was a photo copy, not an original. I anticipated an RFE for one or both, but we were simply approved. So when we hit AP at NVC I was worried it would be sent back and they would send us an RFE at that point. Not a big deal (as soon as I realized we *could* be RFEd for those things, I requested copies of the signed decree and got the original of my fiance's form. Glad I did, I will be sending them with my fiance to his interview just to be safe) except that it would take so much longer. My point being here, though, that while some people were RFEd for those things, we weren't. More proof that it totally depends on your adjudicators.

Anyway, wow, longwinded. I just wanted to return the favor of information exchange here. We are so excited to be moving on in our journey!

Every time we call it's a different thing, "administrative processing," or "administrative review," or "additional processing," but whatever it is we still haven't had our files forwarded to London. They've had the files at the NVC for the last two weeks. We were approved in California a month ago. This is a strange kind of torture.

Chris

Thanks guys.

We called the NVC again yesterday evening. We asked specifically if we were in AP. They told us that we were not. We were in another kind of processing and to check back in a week.

This is strange since when we called on Monday we were told that cases were leaving the NVC really quickly.

Who knows? We'll just keep calling.

Where did you hear it was in AP from? I thought you had to go to the interview before it could be put in AP. Once when I called DOS to check the status I was told it was in AP and nearly tossed my cookies until I realized it probably wasn't so. So I called DOS again later that day and have called once each day since and haven't been told that again. It seemed the first lady wasn't completely sure of what she was doing. Since then we have gotten regular updates an not once had a problem and we know exactly where our case is. You should ring DOS if you haven't already. They should be able to tell you for certain.

Thanks for the reply.

We had called the NVC and after having been put on hold for a few minutes they told us we were in AP. If they sometimes mix this up it might be worth us calling back again later?

From what I understand it's not out of the ordinary for cases to be put in AP (sometimes at random) when they arrive at the NVC.

Additional question... will it be ok if I still do my medical on Thursday? I have an appointment already and I no longer have the 3 days notice in which to cancel.

So on 2nd May we received our NOA2 and files were forwarded on to the NVC. We were expecting our files to be heading to London any day now but when we've called up we've been put into Administrative Processing.

From what I understand this can be caused for a number of reasons. I'm not convinced it's a name check as my name isn't terribly common and I have no criminal record of any kind and the UK is not considered a high risk country.

We were expecting an RFE before getting our NOA2 but it never came, we were just approved outright by the CSC. Could it be that?

I know AP can take weeks or months, is there any data anywhere for the average AP times? If it were just missing paperwork, how long can we typically expect to wait?

I've read some posts on here from a few years ago and they seem to be sorted within a few days to a few weeks. Has anyone had a more recent experience?

I've read that there's no way to expedite AP. Is that 100% the case?

We're distraught. Any advice welcome.

Chris

I received my NOA2 text/email just now (9:30pm)! As you can see, our NOA1 was December 8th, and we were CSC. We would have hit our 5 month mark in just 4 days. It's moving, people, I promise!!

Can't stop smiling.

:dance: Approved :dance: I got a text and email @ 5:15pm!!!! I am so happy!!!

Congratulations! This puts light at the end of my tunnel!

I called again and this lady took my information and submitted the expedite request. I think the first rep didn't know what she was talking about. Now my question is, should I submit the evidence (doctor's letter) now or wait until they ask me for them?

Other expedite posts have suggested that you are sent a form requesting additional information, and you submit the information along with a copy of that form.

Try doing a forum search for "expedite", and you can see what has and hasn't worked for some people. It will also give you an idea of whether or not your medical reason is going to be valid for an expedite (for instance, pregnancy isn't a reason for expedite). Good luck!

I'm confused...

I looked at the link and (If I didn't read it incorrectly) it tells me to write a letter asking for an expedite, and attach the evidence.

However, I just got off the phone with USCIS and they told me that I should fill out a form (I-907: Request for Premium Processing Service), but there's a $1225.00 fee with it.

It's my understanding from the USCIS site that Premium Processing Service only applies to employment-based applications, not marriage/family based. I'm assuming your application was for the K1 visa, considering you posted here, which is marriage/family based and so wouldn't be eligible for the PPS.