ptm897

The only person at my local ASC office was a receptionist who did the signing in and fingerprinting all by herself. I didn't see any immigration officers. Maybe if you ask whoever is working there, they will be able to find an officer and ask.

there is always 1 Immigration Officer at each ASC site, I am one of those ASC Immigration Officers, we are the ASC managers at the sites, the entire site is operated by the contract workers, but the Immigration Officer is usually in their office and you will not see them unless they are needed to verify something or a question is asked, you can always ask to speak to the Immigration Officer. There are times though that the ASC ISO Officer might have left for lunch, or had to take a hour or so of personal leave. At my site, I am 50 miles away from my Field Office so if I have to take time off for a Dr's appointment or something I will do it later in the day after lunch and then there are times that I am away from my office for the last few hours of the day, and if someone comes in needing my help or has questions the contract staff at the ASC will let the person know that the Immigration Officer is out for the rest of the day. The Bio-techs take the prints, and also act as the guard/receptionist sometimes as well.

Please people understand that there are no real Immigration Officers that work at the call center, there are no Tier 2 Officers at that toll free number, there are probably Tier 2 agents as they may call them but believe me that they are NOT Immigration Officers and they are using the title as Agent probably because they are customer service agents. The toll free number gives out wrong information all the time, that has been a huge frustration with us at USCIS. Immigration Services Officers are not employed at the call center, the call center employees are all contract employees and are not Federal Employees of USCIS. I cannot stand the toll free number and the only thing they are good for is having them mail you forms if you want them, but they constantly give out wrong and conflicting information all the time. I have been an Immigration Officer for 20 years now, and I am telling you the truth when I say that NONE of our positions are ever at that call center. We have positions at the Field Offices doing interviews, we work at the Service Centers working on cases that don't require an interview, we work at Headquarters, etc.. but we are never actual employees that work at the call center. No part of our job ever involves taking calls from the call center.

The problem with the duplicate appointment notices for the ASC biometrics appointments are still due to the glitches in the system from NASS our new scheduling system. If you get duplicate appointment notices please bring all of them with you and appear at the ASC on the first appointment day and time and let them know you are getting duplicate notices.

If you happen to get another appointment notice a week or so after you appear, please be on the safe side and just go back to the ASC with that second notice, the contract staff will then double check with the Immigration Officer at the ASC if you indeed have to have the biometrics taken again.

I hope all this info is helpful to you :-)

If it is pending a name check one of our background checks that are done by the FBI and he has a common name unfortunately those pending name checks are totally out of the hands of USCIS and no lawyer or congressional inquiry is going to change that. When our office submits the name check the FBI takes over and we are also at the mercy of them running their background checks, many times common names get tied up for a very very long time. I've interviewed cases before the NBC stopped forwarding files for interview when the name check was still pending and some of those cases were pending for 2 years after we did the interview and the name check was still pending clearance and a final result from the FBI. Sadly there is nothing you can do, it's nothing you did wrong and at USCIS we can't even speed them up with the FBI. It's been a frustration for years. You can do a congressional inquiry or have a lawyer do an inquiry to verify that it is indeed pending the "name check" and if that is the case, there is nothing that can be done. At least when I was still interviewing 3 years ago, we couldn't do anything to speed up the process with the FBI, we were at their mercy which really sucked.

Just to update, it took him a year and 3 inquiries to the USCIS before they started with his case forward. he has an interview date now, he is just waiting for it.

Oh I just saw your post!! That is great!!!!!

Ok I will try next week to go to the location. I will keep you posted. Thanks for all the help.

You are very welcome!!!!

Ok. Yeah maybe next week I will try to go to the local office and see what I can do. I leave December 10, so I still have two more weeks. Then I meet her abroad and we both come back dec 26, so for two weeks while we are both gone no one is getting our mail besides her grandparents, who don't speak or understand English. So they are just piling up our mail. I will be tracking her case online every day. I really don't wanna spend 1000 in change fees to come back early if we did all we can do to reschedule.

Good idea, if you can stop by their office on Dec 8th or 9th, right before you leave and drop off another copy of the reschedule request that would be good, and please try to not worry too much, this time of December when a lot of people are traveling abroad for holidays our offices understand that and we know that there are a lot of reschedule requests and it does sound like you did the right thing in getting the request off ASAP and sending it certified with some kind of verification they received it. Try to enjoy your holidays and tell your wife not too worry about the interview. Also if she is still studying for the history civics portion a little tip, study only 5 questions at a time, for about 15 mins and then every evening just study 5 questions at a time, then in 20 days she will have all 100 memorized. :-)

If your green card says "resident since" March 24, 2014 and you are filing early because you are married to a USC, then your 3 years will be on March 24, 2017, you can file the N-400 starting 90 days before the March 24, 2017 date which would be anytime after December 24, 2016. Unfortunately you won't catch the old fee of $680 and the new fee goes in effect on December 23, 2016, but the increase is only about $45 or $50 I think, it's not a lot, but just know that you will not be a citizen before your child is born, not sure why that is important or concerning to you, if your child is born here they are a USC anyways, but the citizenship process at pretty much all the field offices is way more than 3-4 months now, most offices are at 5-7 months for processing and in light of the horrible election results, I only see the citizenship times increasing because I'm hoping all eligible immigrants that are eligible to naturalize will file for citizenship so they can vote in the next election.

The appointment letter came last sat, November 19th for a dec 20th interview and we mailed the letter asking for a reschedule overnight delivery to the local field office, in NYC federal plaza, and it was received last Wednesday, November 23rd. It said it was signed by someone in the mailroom

OK got it!! Thanks for that info, it really makes things easier trying to figure out what is the best course of action, I'm pretty sure by the time the mailroom gets the letter up to the clerical section for citizenship the file should be there. What usually happens is shortly after the appointment notices are printed and mailed out by the NBC they ship the files to the Field Office, so there is a slight chance that the file is currently on it's way there and should be there by next week.

When are you leaving for vacation? What I would suggest at this point if you are still worried and really want to make sure they get the reschedule letter is right before you leave try going to the office like I suggested in my private message to you, with 2 copies of the same things you mailed and drop off another reschedule request. Did the appointment letter tell you what floor to go to on that appointment notice?

I have a feeling that since you did the smart thing and sent the letter certified where you have proof of when they received it and who signed for it, you have enough proof at this point that their office received the letter in plenty of time to reschedule. But if you want to stop there yourself just to drop off another request in person I don't think there is anything wrong with that as well.

Relax, don't worry, just be honest at the interview and tell the officer you need to update the question that asks if you have ever been arrested, cited, fined etc.. .and just let them know about the stop sign violation. That seems like an awfully long time to wait for another court date for traffic, next May 2017 and this happened in September 2015? or September 2016? I've never known a traffic court hearing to be delayed or scheduled that far in advance before? Were you arrested for this stop sign violation? Meaning handcuffs, fingerprinted and brought to the police station or simply given a written ticket at the scene and allowed to drive away afterward??

So I guess my question is, you said it was a stop sign violation, but did this incident escalate to the point that you were arrested by the officer for not cooperating or arguing with the officer at the time.

I have interviewed countless people during my years in Citizenship and when I would ask them if they had ever been arrested before, so many people either feign ignorance and say No because they were not found guilty or they really had no idea that arrested means, handcuffs and or taken to the police station, fingerprinted, etc... I've argued round and round with people that say in their country arrested is only arrested if they were found guilty.

So if I try next week to go to the local office and reschedule, and they deny me entry or something, when we are both out of the country in a few weeks, should we come back to the interview? We don't have the original letter and I'd hate to pay 1000 dollars in change fees to come back and they say "that's not the original letter, you need to reschedule"...

Having a copy of the appointment notice is perfectly fine, attorneys do this all the time to their clients, they fax or email them a copy of the letter if the original letter goes to the attorney office, so a copy is just fine, sometimes the attorneys can't make it that day for whatever reason so they will fax a copy to their client, it happens a lot so it's not a problem,

are you saying that there is a chance that your wife may just fly back early from vacation to come to the interview? If she does that then sure just show up with the copy of the letter, Can I ask a few more questions though, how far in advance did this appointment letter come? When is her interview scheduled for? You said that she left yesterday for vacation so I'm wondering when the appointment is scheduled for? The thing is that because you did mail in an appointment reschedule request, I really have no idea how quickly they will act on that, if the interview is still about 3-4 weeks away and by some chance the NBC gets the reschedule and they end up not even forwarding the file to the Field office for the interview then if she decides to fly back there is a chance that day if she shows up her file might not even be there because the reschedule request was received in time to cancel that appointment and then they wouldn't have sent the file to the field office.

What date is her interview scheduled for, and where did you mail the reschedule request to? The NBC address or the Field Office that has her case? I'm curious as to which address you mailed it to.

Thanks for the help. I am in NYC. So I think the local field office is federal plaza? It's ok I show up even though it's her interview? Are you allowed to just "show up" to the field office without an official appointment?

If you have general questions regarding immigration services and benefits, we recommend that you first try our website at http://www.uscis.gov/ or call our National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at -800-375-5283 (TDD: 800-767-1833). Most questions can be answered using our website or calling the NCSC.

If you wish to pick up forms or use an INFOPASS kiosk to schedule an appointment, you may go to Room 1-102 in the lobby of 26 Federal Plaza, between the hours of 7:00 AM and 3:30 PM, Monday through Friday (except federal holidays). INFOPASS appointments may also be scheduled on our website at http://www.infopass.uscis.gov/

To speak with an Immigration Services Officer, you must either have an INFOPASS appointment (http://www.infopass.uscis.gov/) or an appointment scheduled by USCIS.

If you are an attorney or an accredited representative, you must bring a signed Form G-28 ''Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Accredited Representative'' (rev. 4/22/09).

I think I need an appointment?

I Sent you a private message yesterday as I was unable to reply back, the first day I signed up here which was yesterday they restricted me to only 10 posts that day and I was all out of opportunities to reply back, please check your messages here and you will see my reply. I see you have not read that message yet.

Well now I was just thinking. My wife wouldn't even be able to go to the interview because the original letter we sent back to reschedule. So I doubt that they would accept her for the interview without the original letter. Also we are still looking for our original marriage certificate as well ....

If you have a copy of the appointment letter that will suffice, but since she is out of the country on vacation now, she won't be here for the interview, so just continue with the reschedule request, and check your private messages here to see my other reply, and don't worry so much about looking for the original marriage certificate right now, if your wife obtained her green card based on her marriage to you then there is already a copy of that in her file and the officer will have her file when they are doing the citizenship interview.

Thank you very much for your time and detailed explaination. I really appreciate that. If I get another biometrics appointment notice, I will definitely go to the appointment.

Once again, thank you very much

You are welcome!! :-)

Well my wife travels in a few hours, and I travel in two weeks, so actually neither of us will be here on the actual interview day.

And yes, she made a copy of the interview notice. I'm not sure what else to do ...

Ok well to go to the office before you leave in the next two weeks and make another copy of everything and bring it to the citizenship section at that field office, just as an "in case" and ask if they can date and time stamp your copy as evidence that you dropped it off. Go to the office with two copies of everything, the lawyers will do this all the time when they drop off evidence for a Request for Evidence, they will have the receptionist date and time stamp their "file copy" and will leave another copy with our office. This is the best thing I can suggest especially since you will be here for another 2 weeks. Just take the time to go to the Field Office. I hope it all works out for you :-) Good Luck!!

Best to avoid a CoC if at all possible and just jump directly to a US passport.

CoC are certainly overpriced.

They are overpriced for sure!! I agree, and I have never seen such a huge increase before either. :-(

I work on those applications now and have been doing them since 2003, I can tell you though, just having the U.S. passport is not always the best idea, because I have several former co-workers that have gone over to work for the Passport office and I have seen this myself in working newly filed N-600's, that as some point down the road when that child grows up and if at anytime they let that U.S. Passport expire, they have to prove their citizenship all over again, everyone does with an expired passport, even those of us born here, we have to give them our birth cert again, so say for instance a derivative citizen got their first U.S. passport as a child when they were say 12 years old, and at the time their parents filed for it the parent had a copy of their naturalization certificate and gave that to the passport office with the child's application, now fast foward 10 or 15 years later and that child is now an adult, they let their U.S. passport expire and say that their parents are no longer around for whatever reason or their parents have lost their naturalization certificates, when they apply to get a new passport they will be asked to show the proof how they derived, and if they no longer have access to their parents naturalization certificates they will be in trouble at that point if they never obtained their own COC.. believe me I have seen it happen more times than not.. and I have had that info confirmed by friends of mine that work for the passport office now. They have done funny things over the years, issued the child's first U.S. passport when the parents naturalized and then for the next passport they ask them for the COC. So I have been telling people to go ahead and apply for their children's U.S. passport immediately when they apply for theirs and then start saving the money they need and eventually get the N-600 filed, because at some point down the road they may need it, then if they don't have it, they end up filing the N-600 some 10-15 years later and are kinda screwed when they have to wait for our processing times and they need their passport to take a trip outside the U.S.

The Passport office can be really funny about this at times so it's always better to eventually get it because I have seen them ask for it years later.

Well there's not really a place to find out this information other then this website. We already sent our request overnight mail on Tuesday. Even the my uscis website has changed. What should we do if we don't get any kind of notice by a few days before the scheduled interview?

Did you make a copy of the appointment notice for your own records before you sent in the request to reschedule? You should always have a copy for yourself and never send in the only copy back to us. Take that copy and go down to the office and turn in the reschedule request in person. It's OK if you already mailed it in, and you probably won't hear anything before she leaves for vacation, but just to be on the safe side, if you are going to be here in the states when she goes, you can always show up on her interview date with another copy of the appointment notice and again let them know that day of her appointment that she is on vacation and you are turning in her request to reschedule. During my 10 years of interviewing citizenship I had many applicant's send their spouse or another family member to our office the day of their interview with their appointment letter and they would turn it in at the receptionist desk with the request for reschedule. Have your wife sign the statement and turn it in. Our office never had a problem with it, and sometimes they would even tell the receptionist they wanted to speak to the officer that was assigned the case that day, and they would call me in my office to let me know someone wanted to give something to me. Now, I was always a very nice and accommodating Officer and I always went above and beyond to help people out especially if they made the effort that day to show up on behalf of their family member to let me know they were asking for a reschedule. It doesn't hurt to just show up at the office. Applicants have always found a way to get up to our floor and speak to the receptionist and people turn in reschedule requests all the time. Also, you can go to your Federal U.S. Senator's office or U.S. House of Representatives Office and ask them to contact the field office on your behalf, you wife would have to do this since she is the applicant. Every Federal congressional office has a liaison in their office that does inquiries to Immigration, and our offices have a congressional unit in which we respond to those congressionals. You can have the Senator or House member's staff do a congressional asking for the reschedule as well. Most of the congressional inquiries are now done quickly through email. They can email both the NBC and the Field Office. Most of the time the files are sent to the Field office about a week or so before the interview, the interview letters usually come in the mail about 2 weeks or so before the scheduled interview sometimes a longer time frame is given, so if they notify both the NBC and the Field office about the reschedule request someone is bound to get it and make sure it gets rescheduled.

I hope all of this is helpful !!

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that if you need to file the N-600 for your child that has derived citizenship from your naturalization or you are an adult that knows for a fact you derived U.S. citizenship through your parents, and you are just procrastinating filing for the N-600 to get your Certificate of Citizenship I am urging you all to please get that application filed NOW before the new fees take affect on December 23, 2016. The fees are going up and the increase for the N-600 Certificates of citizenship is one of the largest increases I have ever seen. It is going up from $600 to over $1,000. That is an insane amount of money and I feel bad for all those that will need to file this.

Just remember if you are now pending naturalization you CANNOT file this until after you naturalize because your minor children do not derive until the day you are sworn in so you can't jump the gun and file it early while you are waiting, otherwise it will be denied.

Thank you for your reply. So, getting "in line for interview" 2 days after biometric or NBC vs IOE (mine is NBC) wouldn't make much difference. I understand patience is the key but just clarifying these things after reading different things here. My FO is Boston, MA.

The processing time goes by the date the service center (NBC) received your N-400 appointment notice, the processing at the ASC for the biometrics has no bearing on when you will get the interview, so the waiting time for the interview always goes by when the N-400 was received at the the NBC, so depending on what the processing times are for Boston, let me look that up on our USCIS website and see what they say. OK, so the processing times on the website say that Boston Field office is working on N-400 applications filed around April 27, 2016 and before, so this will give you an idea of how long the wait is for your interview based on when you mailed in the application. It's about 7 months from the time of filing the application and again the processing at the ASC has nothing to do with making it move faster or slower. Pretty much all applications filed at the service centers that need to have biometrics taken are usually scheduled with the first 3-4 weeks of filing the application. The file is already just sitting in box on a shelf waiting until the Field office gets to that particular fee date and there are some checks done in the computer system that they do to see if people have gone for their biometrics but it doesn't play a part in when they get scheduled for an interview at all.

How far do you live from the Field Office where the interview is? My suggestion is to always go in person and hand deliver the request to reschedule and make copies of the proof she is going to be out of the country. Rescheduling the first appointment is easier than a second interview for people that have not passed a portion of the history/civics test or English requirements and the office sees that as a possible attempt to delay things because they still can't speak English or are not prepared to take the test again, but for the first time appointment, if you have a valid reason why it needs to be rescheduled, like you will be on vacation and tickets are already purchased, we will go ahead and reschedule those, but it does take probably another 1-3 months sometimes for it to drop back into queue and wait for a reschedule.

Sometimes the mail and it getting delivered to the file isn't always the fastest in some of our offices, so I would always tell people when I was still interviewing in Citizenship, that if you can possibly take the time to go in person to our Field office and go up to the receptionist desk and turn the request to reschedule in person to them, make copies of everything so you have an actual copy of the appointment letter for your own records and ask the receptionist to date and time stamp your copy of the letter showing that you came in and dropped it off on a certain day and time. This way you have proof that our office received the reschedule request in advance to the appointment.

I hope this helps!!!

Just out of curiosity then can a U.S. citizen apply for citizenship to another country (Canada let's say since it allows dual)?

I assume since the policy seems to be you enter and leave with your US passport and the U.S. doesn't ask about other citizenships it would be?

Hi Shay,

this article here sums it up pretty good, the US has relaxed their rules on dual citizenship, they frown on it in most circumstances for those of us born here and that wish to go abroad and naturalize somewhere else, but I know several people that have done it, it is much easier to maintain when you get your second citizenship through direct family lineage, through the blood lines, like parents and grandparents.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-03-24/john-roska-its-legal-americans-have-dual-citizenship.html

Don't trust the information off the toll free number, I hate to break the news to you but none of the people answering those phones are actual immigration officers. I am an Immigration Officer with USCIS for the past 20 years now, and I can guarantee you that we do not have any positions at all in our offices that work at the call center. Every single person you speak to at that toll free number are contract staff members, they are not even actual Federal employees. Believe me they would not pay me my GS-12 salary to sit on the phone all day and answer immigration questions. As officers we have complained for years about the wrong information that is always given by the people answering those phones. I have no idea what kind of training they get but I can assure you they are not Immigration Officers. I hate that toll free number because it misleads so many people.

I am an ISO II level officer that is currently a ASC manager at one of our biometrics ASC offices here in the U.S. Please just go to the closest ASC and they will tell you if you have to have your biometrics taken again. Just take the time and go to the ASC office on your appointment letter. I can tell you that we have been having an issue and problems with the new NASS computer system that does the scheduling for all the biometrics appointments. We have complained time and time again to our Biometrics division in HQ and they are trying to work out the glitches in the system, Sometimes we have to re-fingerprint you and sometimes we do not. Sometimes there are problems with the biometrics being attached properly to the computer system that the citizenship branch uses to process your application and on their side it doesn't look like you appeared for biometrics yet they are in the system.

So if you do get another ASC notice just please go to the appointment and bring all your ID and your resident card and the ASC manager will let you know that day if they really do need to take your biometrics again. Sometimes we do not and we send you home, but it's worth it just to show up and let us do the checking for you.

That is for the interview, the Oath ceremony is scheduled at a later time after you have passed your test and gotten through the interview. It depends on each office and what their workload is like, some offices are able to schedule the oath ceremony within a few weeks of the interview, others take longer, it all depends on which office you are going to have your interview at. Some of the larger field offices that have more staff are able to schedule oath ceremonies anywhere from 1-2 weeks after the interview and others maybe 3-4 weeks after the interview. Those times are always changing due to the workload so there is really no good set time frame, it just ebbs and flows along with the workflow.