Sam Kam

Finally US Citizen. Thank you all for your help and Guidance. It took exactly 6 months to complete the entire process. 

I was able to apply for the passport next day and was told it will be delivered in 1 week (as I selected expedited shipping).

Thank you guys for the information. I was asked to sign by the USCIS staff at the ceremony. I clarified if I need to print my name but was told to sign how I usually sign any legal document.

Thank you all for help

Can anyone please tell me if we need to sign or print our name on Naturalization Certificate.

Thanks

Does anyone knows if we need to sign on Naturalization certificate or we need to hand print our names. Different people have posted different response on this and other forums. Please let me know if you have any information. Thank you for your help.

On ‎10‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 6:52 AM, Bill & Katya said:

I seem to remember that when the lady talked to my wife's oath group, there was no need to have set travel plans.  If you have future plans that are not completely finalized, then I would just use an estimate.  In our case, we just walked in without an appointment and was out the door in about 30 minutes, but we did have set plans although no tickets purchased yet.. 

Thank you for the information.

Does anyone knows if we need a planned travel (purchased ticket) to apply at Detroit Passport office. The online scheduler is asking for travel dates and won't schedule appointment without it. I will appreciate any input/help on this.

Thank you

52 minutes ago, Lovetoteach said:

I received the email on Wednesday 10/3 at 6:12 am. The letter was actually dated 10/2 which was a Tuesday.

Thank you so much for the information

Here I was expecting I will get some update on this Saturday.

15 minutes ago, Lovetoteach said:

Hi Sam,

 

I didn’t receive any text, just an email to say that I needed to check my account for an update. When I checked I saw the Oath Ceremony letter. The actual letter didn’t arrive in the post until almost a week later.

 

 

Did you receive that email on Saturday or Monday? I am suspecting that  they run the scheduling program on Friday night/Saturday. For Fingerprinting, most of the appointment emails were being sent out on Saturday morning and letter was uploaded to the account by Monday/Tuesday.

17 hours ago, Lovetoteach said:

Thanks so much. 

 

I actually waited 8 weeks for my Oath Ceremony because it was a judicial ceremony, as I changed my last name finally to my married name. Not 100 % sure why I had to do the judicial one to be honest as I thought my marriage certificate would be enough.

 

Im sure it won’t take as long for you. Congratulations to you too x

Thank you. Did you by any chance receive text for Oath ceremony being scheduled on Saturday and letter was added to your account on Monday? Please let me know.

Thanks

26 minutes ago, james82 said:

I had my interview today, and it went well. Same for my wife

i asked the officer about the oath hoping he will make me pick a date, he said he is forwarding the application to his boss for final approval and i was handed a paper. He suggested to wait around or less 2 weeks for the approval to be mailed, and then may be another 2 weeks for the oath. So roughly 1 month. (according to him)

let s stay tuned and keep every one else posted here

 

Good luck everyone 

 

Congrats James. I was approved too today. Got text later to indicate I was put in line for Oath. Tried to ask the IO officer about Oath and was told they don't handle scheduling of Oath. They did not give any timeline.

4 hours ago, Lovetoteach said:

Finally a United States Citizen. I had my Oath Ceremony today in Grand Rapids🇺🇸👍🏼

Congrats

@enriquezae can you please tell me when your oath ceremony was scheduled.

Does anyone knows how long is it taking for Detroit office to schedule Oath Ceremony. Please let me know.

On 9/19/2018 at 6:27 PM, pran34 said:

Got interview letter today. Scheduled for Oct 24.

Congrats. Lucky you. Quicker than all of us. :)

My interview notice has my name messed up :(. They told me to get it corrected during interview. I hope this will not delay further process after interview.

3 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

All you have to do is go to the passport office across the street from the Federal Courthouse the day of your oath if your oath is in the morning, or the next day if your oath is in the afternoon and get a passport while you wait (for an extra fee of course).  Don't bother with passport/visa service agencies as they will charge even more and you will most likely have to wait longer than an hour or so.

 

Good Luck! 

So they can provide passport on the same day?

I did not know about it. Thank you so much for the information.

26 minutes ago, pran34 said:

Btw, you can cancel air tickets within 24 hours w/o penalty.

Lucky me...that agent won't do it. I checked with them. No use worrying about it now....

23 minutes ago, pran34 said:

So Detroit is moving forward finally. Looks like there are two others from May who got interviews too. Congratulations to all.

 

Too bad on your timing for travel. From what I calculated, people get oath within 3 weeks of interview if you are approved on spot. Plus 1 week for expedited passport. So I think 4 weeks is the best case scenario.

I spoke to my lawyer about this and he said to cancel the trip if I can. If not, wait till interview is done to get a clear picture of Oath ceremony date. He said there are agencies that can get passport in couple of days for an extra charge. Looks like most likely I would end up postponing Oath ceremony.

Does anyone here knows how long it takes to get passport if we file at detroit passport office when one needs to travel within a week or 2.Thank you for your help.

3 hours ago, Rasha167 said:

congratulations for your interview, I had searched before for that a lot and got nothing, but from my timeline since the dates are close I can tell that you could get your oath ceremony within a month from the interview date. my interview was august 29, got the update of status about oath ceremony September 5th, and the ceremony is September 17th, so it took like 19 days from interview to ceremony.

Thanks Rasha for the information.

Got my interview for Oct 18. Received it today and Yesterday only booked tickets for international travel in November. Does anybody knows how many oath ceremonies are conducted in a month in Detroit? Is there a website that can show us those date. Thank you in advance. Will appreciate any help on this.

18 minutes ago, enriquezae said:

He sent the application online on May 9, 2018. FP were May 29th, and then August 23rd is when we received word that he was scheduled for his interview. No worries on the questions! Did you do FP already? If so, Maybe you will be hearing something any day now. 

Thank you so much for the information. I filed on May 2. FP on May 16. Since then no update. Inquired a month back and was told application is ready to be scheduled for interview. I hope he gets his citizenship soon. All the best for interviews.

34 minutes ago, imane&islem said:

That is exactly what's bothering me.. I have a trip overseas, and will stay for a while. I just don't want them to call me for interview while I am outside the US and reschedule it at the end.. My mom had a serious surgery, and I couldn't go visit her because of this, especially that I heard of those who have had their interview scheduled. 

 

I am gonna give up on waiting, and just pretend that I did not apply, till I see some update notification in my email.

 

I would highly recommend people who are planning on applying anytime soon, at least at my field office (Jacksonville, Fl) to apply ONLINE .. I know for sure now that they do process them a lot faster.. within one month from you bio appt you get scheduled for an appt. 

I hope your mom feels better and you spend quality time with your family. I hope your process is done before you leave in November. 

1 hour ago, Paul & Mallory said:

Geez. Can we not negate someone's frustration by playing the "Who's Waited Longer" game? That happens so much on here and it doesn't really solve anything.

 

OP - with that being said, I definitely would not try to worry, unless or until you actually surpass average waiting times. I think like every part of this entire process, when it comes to waiting in line to be reviewed, there is no rhyme or reason to it. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong or holding up your case; it could just be a matter of your case landing on someone's desk/queue that works slower than others, or has more complicated cases to review in front of yours. The different field offices also vary in service levels due to a variety of reasons, such as case load and amount of applicants versus other offices.

 

Hang in there! This is the LAST FINISH LINE you have to cross!!

A good post. I am in the same situation. Folks in my field office who filed after me, are getting interviews scheduled. I tried and found out that my background checks are done last month. Still over a month and no interviews. So it's not background check for sure in my case. 

Biggest problem is there is no way to contact USCIS and try to resolve this issue. You can only do so if you are outside processing time frame (which can be as much as a year from now). That scares people. It worries them (do I need to wait for a year to even ask USCIS to look into it?). We all have lives to live, families to feed, places to go (sometimes due to responsibility, not just for enjoyment) and this unnecessary stress. When you have information that people around your filing timeframe are getting called for interview, your application is ready for interview and nothing is happening for you, you just can't plan for few months in advance.

3 minutes ago, CarlHamilton said:

Look, the handful of people who post here from your field office are not representative of the overall pool of applicants.  USCIS publishes aggregate statistics on processing times and according to the website it takes 6.5 months to process 50% of applications in Jacksonville, FL, and 13 months to go through the rest.  You applied in May, which is only three months ago.  You're not falling behind.  You'd still be about average if you heard in November or December. 

Don't go by processing time. That's information from 60 days back. They  may publish 6.5 months but they may be processing at better or worse speed today. 

1 minute ago, pran34 said:

Yup. Hope to get in the next round of the draw. Lol. Although it also depends on how complicated the case is.

 

Mine is relatively straightforward except a few things I may have to explain during the interview: 30+ trips abroad (most of them business trips) with 200+ days outside the country, 1 traffic ticket (minor), and a divorce (although I didn't get my GC through marriage). But I would consider myself lucky if I get the interview call so soon.

lol. All the 4 cases I told you are straightforward cases. Me and my wife don't even have a parking ticket. More than 5 years of residency when we filed (so even 90 days of early filing does not apply). So don't think it's just complexity of case. There is some level of inefficiency at this office. When you talk to IOs at this office, they are not very helpful as well.