robhostein

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 😄

I only surrendered my current 10 year green card. I brought the rest but they never need them. 

The green card only.

For me, I turned in all my other EAD cards.
And the officer looked pleasantly surprised, looking like he only needed Green card
 

Yeah, perfectly understandable. I was raised by a christian family. They gave me not one, but three biblical names when I was born. I grew up to hate everything about christianity. And every once in a while, someone would see my name when I was introduced to them, and then they would go, "oh, that is your name, like that guy in the bible!" And then they would try to talk scripture to me and ask me if I go to church.
 
lol... Just, got tired of it all. I deliberately chose a new first and middle name that would have absolutely nothing to do with the bible. Took me years to find one that I was comfortable with. But I did, and I'm glad!

I'm glad you found a new name! I'm sure you're not the first person to change their name due to religion related reasons. I think it's great that the US is so open about name changes (even first names) because we have no power over what our parents name us, and if someone wants a new name, they should be able to change it. The US will even allow very unusual name changes....like the magician Teller (of duo Penn and Teller) who has no first name official, and only a last name: "Teller".

Yeah, perfectly understandable. I was raised by a christian family. They gave me not one, but three biblical names when I was born. I grew up to hate everything about christianity. And every once in a while, someone would see my name when I was introduced to them, and then they would go, "oh, that is your name, like that guy in the bible!" And then they would try to talk scripture to me and ask me if I go to church.
 
lol... Just, got tired of it all. I deliberately chose a new first and middle name that would have absolutely nothing to do with the bible. Took me years to find one that I was comfortable with. But I did, and I'm glad!

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

Yeah, perfectly understandable. I was raised by a christian family. They gave me not one, but three biblical names when I was born. I grew up to hate everything about christianity. And every once in a while, someone would see my name when I was introduced to them, and then they would go, "oh, that is your name, like that guy in the bible!" And then they would try to talk scripture to me and ask me if I go to church.
 
lol... Just, got tired of it all. I deliberately chose a new first and middle name that would have absolutely nothing to do with the bible. Took me years to find one that I was comfortable with. But I did, and I'm glad!

Yeah, perfectly understandable. I was raised by a christian family. They gave me not one, but three biblical names when I was born. I grew up to hate everything about christianity. And every once in a while, someone would see my name when I was introduced to them, and then they would go, "oh, that is your name, like that guy in the bible!" And then they would try to talk scripture to me and ask me if I go to church.
 
lol... Just, got tired of it all. I deliberately chose a new first and middle name that would have absolutely nothing to do with the bible. Took me years to find one that I was comfortable with. But I did, and I'm glad!

Yeah, perfectly understandable. I was raised by a christian family. They gave me not one, but three biblical names when I was born. I grew up to hate everything about christianity. And every once in a while, someone would see my name when I was introduced to them, and then they would go, "oh, that is your name, like that guy in the bible!" And then they would try to talk scripture to me and ask me if I go to church.
 
lol... Just, got tired of it all. I deliberately chose a new first and middle name that would have absolutely nothing to do with the bible. Took me years to find one that I was comfortable with. But I did, and I'm glad!

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

That's good to know! Of course I assume there are nice ones out there, I just haven't been lucky enough to meet them yet, haha. I don't blame them for being neutral either, it seems fair. Imagine getting a smiley person who then rejects your case! That would be very confusing.

Hm, I wouldn’t go so far as to say mine was friendly but she was nice enough, at least she definitely smiled a few times! At the same time she seemed to be more thorough than some others here - she went through every single question on the form, some people have said they didn’t get it that thoroughly done.
 
Back to the name change. I come from a background of people who emigrated to all sorts of places and names were often changed during the process, but it’s normally just an anglicization and/or shortening etc of names to make it easier for people in the new country to pronounce and/or to assimilate more easily. Pyotr Mikhailowitz becomes Peter Michaelson or Peter Michael or even just Pyotr Mikhail, for example. But he normally doesn’t become Albert O’Connor. So some changes are easier to understand than others.
 
Sure but if someone is looking for you hiding from a crime in your old country, they’re not going to have your SSN, and how many millions of people in the US must share each date of birth? And how many people from other countries could run a background check to find you in the US? Seems to me a complete name change is a pretty good way of hiding from the past in that kind of case. Again, no aspersions on OP, just an understanding of why it might have been examined in detail.
 
 

I am glad you shared your experience it give hopes to people have commited a crime and are scared to even apply for citizenship. So did you waited 5 years from the judgement of your case to apply for citizenship or just applied for it? There is always an issue of good moral character within the statutory period so i am guessing it was after you have accumulated years to prove good moral character. Your experience give hopes to alot of people Thanks for sharing.

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.
 
 
 

At face value I would take it that it was. 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. I didn’t have an interview anything like yours, my interviewer was very thorough but at no point did I feel like I was being interrogated. 

Even if you go to the courts to change your name, they immediately start probing about a criminal record. It's basically the first thing they ask: what is the reason you want to change your name and do you have a criminal record? I think they just view it as super suspicious and are trying to check every nook and cranny to make sure the name change and crime are not interrelated....it also might vary from state to state, with some states being harder on people than others about it.
 
We've seen on VJ that many lawyers can give bad advice or make mistakes. I'm not sure they can predict every time whether you get the "mr. nice guy" officer or the interrogator type, we've seen people here who had very straightforward cases also end up with interrogators or being downright rude, such as being accused of lying, etc. I would just say in general to anyone here on VJ who has any type of criminal record and plans to do a name change via naturalization to expect a harsher interview.
 
And obviously you did great! That's why they approved you. I'm just saying he may have drilled you harder because you were so calm, so he had to "probe" you a bit more.

Here in Cincinnati, OH, my interview was just 12 weeks after I submitted the application.

Good luck on your interview @ordjnb , go break a leg
Congratulations on becoming an American citizen, I can't wait for all this to get done

Hey... Now it says the same thing for me too...
 

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...

Congrats! I hope mine doesn't take that long. Almost at 3 weeks. 

My crime happened over 10 years ago. I plead guilty to trespassing and spent a week in jail. All the immigration lawyers I talked to told me that my conviction was not a CIMT and that I would be fine waiting 5 years after the end of my suspended sentence to apply for citizenship.
 
Fast forward to last month, my interview. The question came up about my criminal record, and I was asked to explain what happened. I did. The interviewer didn't really ask me much of anything about it. Which was almost disappointing (but also a relief...) because I was very prepared with what I was going to say. 
 
What the interviewer WAS interested in, however, was my request to change my name. Tons of questions about that. I was interrogated like as if I was a suspect in a homicide. I was asked why I wanted to change my name. I was asked what each name means. They did not accept vague answers, they wanted detailed info on what each name means. Saying it's personal was not good enough. I was asked asked of the history of the name. I was asked why I chose the spelling. The final question, was the most interesting of all. I was asked if my request for a name change had anything to do with my criminal record.
 
After all that, the interviewer approved my interview.

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