robhostein

For me, they only wanted the green card. We were all in a huge court room hall. As each of us walked up to the judge's podium, we placed our green card in this huge bowl next to the officer. I don't even think they looked at them. Then we walked over to the judge who handed us our certificate!

21 minutes ago, little immigrant said:

If yours is, for example, 126-66-3456 and you don't like it because there is three 6's in a row, you can change it.

I think it would be absolutely awesome to have an SSN like that!

1 hour ago, SusieQQQ said:

I believe it is fairly unusual to completely change all names, so that combined with having a criminal history of some sort makes it not totally surprising that they would pursue that line of enquiry to ensure they hadn’t missed anything.

Well, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised. I realized that during the questioning, that it must have been really suspicious.

55 minutes ago, millefleur said:

It is expected that an innocent person will be deeply offended if accused of a crime or wrongdoing. People who just sit there calmly and deny with little emotion are actually viewed as being more likely to be guilty or involved in the crime and it probably makes the detective push harder if you remain calm.

But it was the truth. My name change had nothing to do with my crime. I told him repeatedly that I was always planning to change my name, long before the crime took place. He didn't say that he thought my name change was because I was trying to erase my crime. He just asked if my changing of my name had anything to do with my crime. That was his last question, I believe.

But I dunno, I just didn't think standing up and getting loud and angry, and calling the interviewer a ####### and dropping a few F-bombs would have been the smartest thing to do. In fact, I thought it would lead to me being escorted out of the building by security. But I did, firmly deny the questions that I was changing my name because of my crime. I just didn't yell at him or threaten his safety. I just thought that would have been the absolute dumbest thing to do. That's what I meant by being calm. 

I mean, I didn't lash out and ask him why he was asking me that, or say that he has no right to ask me that. I mean, I knew, and I wasn't surprised, that they have a right to ask me these questions. That's why I didn't get offended to such a question, because, it was logical that I would get asked about it. I just was shocked, and completely caught off guard, that I was literally being interrogated about it to such an extent. 

I just didn't think changing one's name, with the courts, was a crime. I mean, legally, it doesn't erase my crime. The government still knows who I am, so I mean, lol, what exactly is there to hide?

Hmm... Now, that I think of it, I guess it makes sense, with that in mind, that he asked me all of those questions of what meaning my new name had for me. I didn't have a problem answering those. Hmm... I guess if I didn't have a story to tell about how I chose my name, it would have been a big reason to deny my application, huh?

But wow, thanks for that info. I did not know how much of a huge red flag my name change was going to be that I wasn't going to get a normal interview. I wonder why my immigration lawyers didn't tell me that.

4 hours ago, Fahad86 said:

So did you waited 5 years from the judgement of your case to apply for citizenship or just applied for it?

Yes, I did. Waited 9 years, actually. Wasn't really in that much of a rush. I followed the advice of my immigration lawyers. They told me my conviction was nothing to worry about.

54 minutes ago, BBlueB said:

He was enjoying the thrill of being in power as if he was a detective in a movie

Kidding. I think he did a good job.

 

For me, I also was like you. The interviewer looked very young, and asked all kinds of questions and I felt like interrogated as well.

Ahhahaha, well I'm glad to know I wasn't the only person who had a similar type of interview!

I remember my interview, about two years ago. And it wasn't quite like I was expecting. The man who interviewed me looked like an ex-marine who is working as a police detective, but has a side gig as a USCIS employee. At no point during my interview did he smile or seem welcoming. Just very cold, with zero emotion.

I remember we began with the civics and english test. That part was easy for me. Then he asked me basic questions about my application, like where I lived, what jobs I worked. And all the questions one would expect from the interview. That was all good and normal, I guess. Even asked about my criminal history, which I explained.

But the rest of the interview, was spent on this one question. That I was changing my full name. The whole tone of the interview went from emotionless and mundane, to being an interrogation. I felt like I was in a police station being questioned by a detective and I was the prime suspect in a murder.

I was asked so many questions about my name. Why I was changing it. What each of the names meant. Why did I choose those names. Why, why, why why why. Why did I choose now to change it. Does my changing of my name have anything to do with my criminal history. I found myself having to convince him that changing my name was not related to my criminal history.

To this day, I still wonder, whether the questions about my name change were really about the name, or if it was one of those body language tests. Psychological assessment type of thing. Like he knew I would be expecting to be grilled about my criminal history, and I was. So when he didn't, I was lulled into a false sense of security. Which he was expecting, and then to later catch me off guard by instead grilling me about my name change.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to realize it in the moment, that this bizarre interest in my name change was him testing my reactions. He was expecting me to get defensive, probably to get offended, and perhaps call him a derogatory term or two. I dunno. Not like I would even react like that to begin with. I really believe that was his way of assessing my good moral character. How I reacted to his questioning.

Well, I reacted as calmly as I could. I looked him in the eye. For some reason, I dunno, I was still very confident in my answers, and I wasn't scared at all. I knew this citizenship was destined to be mine. I just had to maintain my calm. 

At the end, I was expecting him to put my application into further review or something, or at worst deny me straight out, but no... he stamped the seal of approval, right there on the spot. Zero emotion, of course, as he escorted me out of his office. No, welcome to America, or anything. Just a cold bureaucratic stamp of approval. I will never forget this interview, though. I'll always remember it as my right of passage into America.

I still believe this guy was an ex FBI agent and was using his interrogating skills to assess me. This definitely wasn't like those mock citizenship interviews you see on YouTube 😄

35 minutes ago, coloradoman said:

No. You didn't misrepresent anything, at least not from what you're telling us. Unless you made false statements and lied to USCIS, there are no grounds for denaturalization.

Well, good. Cause every statement was as truthful as could be. I crossed all my T's and dotted all my I's.

On 10/10/2019 at 12:25 PM, Cyberfx1024 said:

I have never heard of this denaturalization task force. 

On 10/10/2019 at 12:51 PM, Stevo1979 said:

[removed]

Well, from what I've read, the people from the Trump administration wanted to put a team together of around 300 USCIS immigration employees, and some investigators and paralegals. With a budget of, I think 200 something million dollars, their job would be going over past cases of naturalized citizens, all 20 million of them, find evidence of fraud and such, and bring those cases to immigration court.

I was lucky during my interview, cause I was only asked the easiest of all the questions. Questions like, who is the current president, who makes federal laws, the last day to send in your taxes, etc. The hard questions that I was uneasy about, those never came up.

So this Denaturalization Task Force I've been hearing about has me just a bit concerned.

I became a citizen back in April, this year. At the time of my interview, the subject of my name was a bit of an issue because my legal name didn't match my IDs. That's because back in 2010, I got a court order approved to change my birth name. But I didn't change it on my IDs, I left them unchanged and continued to use my birth name. Even in 2015 when I decided to renew my green card (which was already expired for over a year), I still kept it in my birth name as I sent in the renewal application. 6 months later, new green card arrived in my birth name.

Now, fast forward to last year, when I was putting together my N400 application. I knew the name thing would be serious. Like, right, this is the N400. The big one. The application to become a naturalized citizen. There's absolutely no mucking about here. So using all the little bits of common sense that I had, I figured, the part where it asks what my current legal name was, I had to put down the name that I chose on that court order from 2010. And so I did. Where it asks of any other names I used in the past, I put down my birth name. Current name on green card, my birth name. And of course, I attached a copy of the court order.

But hold on, not only was my legal name from 2010 not on my renewed green card from 2015, but I also put down on the N400 application that I wanted to change the spelling of my currently legal name by a couple letters. Not the whole thing, just a couple letters.

Now you would think that all of this would be a little suspicious to an immigration officer. And you'd be right, it was, because at the interview, I was asked a ton of questions about my name, and what my intentions were with changing my name. A lot of questions. In fact, most, if not all of the interview, was focused on my name. I thought for sure, my application was going to be denied right then and there.

But for some reason, the interviewing officer gave me an approval at the end of the interview. I was stunned, but happy, nonetheless. Couple months later, oath ceremony.

So you've read my story. Do you think I have anything to fear from this Denaturalization Task Force?

13 hours ago, SDApply said:

Congrats.
I got the date 6 weeks after my interview.

On 6/7/2019 at 10:49 PM, Jessica Donahue said:

Congratulations!

 

My wife was approved on 6/5, we're just waiting for the oath ceremony date...

On 6/7/2019 at 10:23 AM, -Marie- said:

Got the letter too: 

Ceremony is on June 19 at 8:00am.

You guys got actual physical letters in your snail mailboxes? That is cool. I wonder why I never got any paper letters in my mailbox. I mean, I got one for my biometrics, but I never got one for my interview, and I never got one for my oath ceremony.

The PDF notice for my oath ceremony was posted at the last minute, after waiting almost two months after my interview. I swear, if I didn't have the hunch to check my account, I would have MISSED my oath ceremony!!!!! My oath ceremony was 7 days after the notice was posted. If an actual letter would have been mailed, I think it would have arrived a day or two in the mailbox before the ceremony. After the first month of checking my account every two days, I got tired of it and thought maybe it might be another month or two before they actually schedule my oath ceremony. So I was only checking it like once a week.

Anyways, congrats to you all for becoming citizens. We are citizens now.

Well, just an update, my oath ceremony was on April 18th here in our city's downtown court house. It was quite a show. 78 people were being naturalized. We all had to wear nametags and we had assigned seating. Before handing out the certificates, they had each person being naturalize stand up (a mic was being passed around) and say their name and their country of birth. Then they proceeded to have everyone stand up and we all said the oath of allegiance together. There were a bunch of people from these organizations, one of them was the women's voters? I think. Another was this civil war reenactment group, and they were dressed in costume. We were all given voter registration forms to sign, which they collected at the end. 

The court clerk lady was a friendly one, this is a highlight of her job, doing these ceremonies once a month (I believe that's how often  oath ceremonies are held.) She went around asking all 78 of us where we're from, how we're doing, and other stuff about our culture and our country of birth. She was also the lady who had to hand out our name change court orders, so after the ceremony we had to wait for her down at her office to get our court orders, those of us who changed our names on the N400, me included.

The whole thing took about 3 hours. And after we were handed our certificates, we were all allowed to line up and take photos with the judge at her bench. Yeah, everyone took photos.

Came home with a big ol' fat envelope of pamphets and other stuff, including those little american flags. What an experience, what an experience. Where do I go from here. I am an American Citizen now...

On 6/7/2019 at 8:06 AM, sweetymcbeal said:

I called the US passport and now they changed the processing time from 4-6 weeks to 6-8 weeks. Any advice what I can do? 

Sorry, man. No advice from me. I haven't even begun to contemplate getting my US passport.

21 hours ago, cherylc522 said:

My question is: If I get my legal name changed, am I required to apply for a new permanent resident card?

Just a heads up, some states, their DMV will require you to change your name on your immigration document (green card, in your case) before they'll allow you to change your name on your driver's license. I know that definitely happened to me, here in Ohio. They denied my name change because my green card was still in my old name. But, I got my naturalization certificate now (which is in my new name) so I can change my name on my license.

Hahaha, It's been a month and a half since I became a citizen and I'm still getting these notices in my email and phone from the USCIS website about my N400 case. Hello!!! There's nothing to review!!! I am a citizen now!!! Hahaha. Silly website. 🤣

But in all seriousness, being a citizen rocks. I'm still planning the day I'll go to the DMV and SSA to present to them my certificate and update my IDs. 😊

On 4/12/2019 at 9:13 PM, sweetymcbeal said:

Mine is 2 months today still waiting on my oath date, did you change your name. I did, maybe that might be a reason for my delay. 

Yeah, I changed my name, but I doubt that was the reason for the delay. Our district, Cincinnati only does judicial ceremonies, and from what I remember, they do them once a month. My ceremony was on on April 18th, and they had like 78 people there being naturalized, so I guess they also wait until they have enough people to have the ceremony.

Wow, you guys have been to a lot of countries. I am jealous! 

I hope to travel to the UK after I become a citizen.

I finally got my oath ceremony scheduled yesterday. It's only been, 7 weeks since the interview. The ceremony is next week!

After almost two months since my interview, they finally scheduled me for my oath ceremony. The notice was posted today. And they're not wasting time, it looks like, cause my ceremony is next week!

Lol, hilarious.

You should see the videos of kids trying to figure out how cassette players work.

15 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Does this count airport layovers?

I don't think those would count. 

When I came to the USA, we didn't have a direct flight. We had to stop at a couple countries. We never left their airports.

I'd like to know something. Once you become a citizen, does the person who sponsored you for your green card get some type of notification letter that you have naturalized and they are no longer required to financially support that you?

Besides the USA and your home country.

For me? Sadly, zero.

Wow, I haven't seen a rotary phone since I was 5. My grandparents used one back in my home country.

12 hours ago, Going through said:

Insanely curious about what your name is now, but of course won't ask

Yea, it's interesting how these IOs work, you were expecting a grilling, but you got sympathy. They're tricky.

Now as for my name, I guess it is suspicious, but hey, I'm doing it legally and without the intent to commit fraud or some #######. I requested to change my full name, first, middle and last. It really is a spiritual thing. I was named after something that I do not believe in. I promised my girlfriend, at the time, that I would change my name. That was around 10 or 13 years ago. I promised myself that when I become a citizen, I deserve a new name.

This is something I had to tell the IO, that I had plans to change my name waaaay before my crime. The two were not related.

EDIT: Wow, the C-word for excrement is censored... go figure...