nbluDeby

This entire statement is highly inappropriate for the immigration interview and also is almost entirely incorrect.
 
She herself will almost certainly not be able to get medicaid, since it is a program for low-income individuals. She most certainly will get Medicare (and Social Security) as the federal government literally exists to provide these benefits (they are mandatory and constitute over half of the budget). Suggesting that the system might run out of money is as ludicrous as suggesting that the US government might not be able to either collect taxes or raise debt. With enough luck, soon she will be able to enroll in Medicare for All, and then forget worrying about being able to afford healthcare (much like in most other rich countries).
 
But also, the majority of so-called "chain migration" is spouses and children of US citizens, who are not eligible for any benefits in the years leading to naturalization, while still paying all the taxes (at an income that is on average higher than average in the country). While some people (including older people) will end up using more benefits than they paid in the system, overall immigration is a massive asset to the country. To put it in other words, imagine if you were not allowed to bring your aging parent here -- would you move to the United States, or have to stay in your home country to care for them? Would you want the US government to force you in this choice?
 
The lady in question made the United States her home. She lives here now, and she will probably die here. She deserves to be a citizen, and she deserves the dignity of being able to live well.

I just took the oath at the Newark office yesterday, and wanted to write down a few things that might be useful to other people (as I found other people's experience useful for my purposes). Please see my timeline in a standard format below.
 
Application: I printed and mailed my application around the end of Nov (I believe Nov 30th). At around the same time, online application became available, but I didn't know that. From the Nov and Dec trackers in this forum it seems that people who submitted electronically went through the process quicker. That being said, I think my application was scanned and then became an quasi-electronic one (I got an IOE). 
  Fingerprints: I was scheduled on Dec 9th, 2017 for Dec 27th, 2017 at Elizabeth ACS. As I was traveling for Christmas, I attempted to do a walk-in at Manhattan ACS next day, and the employees there were friendly and seemed ready to accommodate, however, at the last moment a supervisor overheard me, and stopped the process, claiming there were already too many people. If you ever been to Manhattan ACS, you know that wasn't true, however, you can't argue with authority (although, now that I am a citizen and can't expect retaliation, I will be filing a complaint with their office).

A USCIS agent later told me on the phone that in the event of not being able to make a fingerprinting appointment, you're technically allowed to go to a different office on a different date, so you might want to try that if you have time and work in Manhattan not too far from the ACS (as I did). I have successfully early walked-in many times before (for green card and UK visas), and I think what was different this time is that the ACS on the appointment was Elizabeth.

Following this, I called USCIS on Dec 11th, and on Dec 12th, 2017 they scheduled me to fingerprint on Jan 2nd, 2017 at Elizabeth ACS. The agent on the phone offered a couple of different days to pick, however, he was only able to offer 3 weeks window or later from the day I called. On the 2nd, I went to the Elizabeth office, which was not too crowded. I heard it gets extremely busy, but I only spent about half an hour there. 
  Interview letter: I received my first interview letter on May 30th, 2018 for July 11th, 2018 (i.e. 6 weeks from letter date to interview date). As I was traveling (again!) for the 4th of July, I decided to reschedule. The advice is often to cancel the trip, and I contemplated that seriously, but eventually I decided to try my luck as there were too many family members involved.

So I called USCIS and asked them to reschedule. The lady on the phone assured me she would send a reschedule notice to the USCIS office. This was a mistake! A few weeks later I got a form reply from USCIS advising me to follow the regular process. I also scheduled and attended an InfoPass appointment, and that proved pointless too. The only way Newark USCIS would process my case was through the instructions on the interview letter.

So on June 15th, 2018 I sent a reschedule request through certified USPS. Again, you might have a different experience, but while USCIS got my request, USPS never confirmed delivery (last available status is "delivery attempted, but nobody was at the building was available to accept"). I was told by the USPS customer service that this is not unusual for federal buildings where mail is accepted in bulk.

On June 25th, 2018 I received a de-schedule notice, confirming that my earlier interview was no longer current, and on July 20th, 2018 I got a new interview date for Sep 4th, 2018 (i.e. 6 weeks + a few days from when the interview was scheduled). Overall, I lost about 2 weeks here by not rescheduling right away.
  Interview and oath: I did not know this, but Newark allows you to bring anyone with you as long as they have an ID. There are plenty of chairs to wait while you do the interview with an officer. My interview was at 1pm, I showed up at 12:30pm, handed my appointment letter on the 15th floor, was checked in and asked to go to 14th, handed my appointment letter on the 14th, was asked if I had any documents to submit, said not, and a few minutes later was invited to the the interview around 1:20pm.

The interview itself was basically a review of the N-400 form that I submitted plus updates and then the tests. The Q&A portion was extremely simplistic. He would ask me a question (e.g. "What is the dirtiest river in the US?"), I would answer in a few words ("East River"), he would write my answer verbatim on a piece of paper with questions that he had, and would mark the answer "correct" or "incorrect". Much like the study guide indicated, I only needed to know the very short answers. I gathered the interviewer question sheets are pre-printed in advance, they grab one and go question by question.

The one interesting thing I learned at the interview is USCIS considers your name from the foreign birth certificate to be your full name. So if you want to change it (in my case, I dropped part of my name that didn't make sense in the US), you can do it at the interview, the agent helped me do this on the iPad. But they might not offer, so ask if that's something you want to do. The name change did not delay my oath, and was seamless.

Another quick note is that I found the USCIS practice app for the iPhone extremely helpful. 20 questions at a time, I learned all the necessary bits. Sadly, over the course of 2017 and 2018, I already learned way too much about our current leadership at the White House and the Congress and about the theoretical process of checks and balances, so there wasn't a lot of new material to study anyway.
  Oath: After the interview was done, I was asked to go back to the 15th floor and wait to sign an oath certificate. This took considerable time -- I waited from 1:45pm to 3:15pm. For many people the wait was shorter (and they could go grab something to eat at the cafeteria on the 2nd floor that works until 3pm), but a few waited longer than I am. After I signed my certificate, I got handed some materials for the oath, and then around 3:30pm we were invited into the oath hall.

A quick note on the scheduling: from what I gather, the staff at the Newark office works very hard every day to make sure everyone takes a same-day oath, so they wait until everyone is done with their interviews and signed their oath certificates, and only then the final oath ceremony of the day takes place.

The oath ceremony itself was cool, and the people running it made us all feel very special and appreciated as new citizens.
  In short, my main takeaways:
- submit the application electronically
- fingerprinting appointment can be rescheduled on the phone, and will happen about 3 weeks after letter is sent
- interview can only be rescheduled by mail, and if my case is any indication will probably delay you a few months
- bring everyone with you to the interview as it's much easier and things can move quickly (make sure everyone has an ID)
- generally in my (very basic and commonplace) case things worked out fairly quickly and predictably Good luck everyone with your cases.
================================== Dallas/Lewisville, Texas Lockbox ================================== UserName.........|GC-Date.|Sent....|Cashd...|NOA.....|Fprints.|In Line..|Int ltr..|Intrview.|Oath.....|Field Office.....|NBC/IOE nbluDeby.........|02/23/13|11/30/17|........|12/06/17|01/02/18|.........|07/20/18.|09/04/18.|09/04/18.|Newark, NJ.......|IOE  

This entire statement is highly inappropriate for the immigration interview and also is almost entirely incorrect.
 
She herself will almost certainly not be able to get medicaid, since it is a program for low-income individuals. She most certainly will get Medicare (and Social Security) as the federal government literally exists to provide these benefits (they are mandatory and constitute over half of the budget). Suggesting that the system might run out of money is as ludicrous as suggesting that the US government might not be able to either collect taxes or raise debt. With enough luck, soon she will be able to enroll in Medicare for All, and then forget worrying about being able to afford healthcare (much like in most other rich countries).
 
But also, the majority of so-called "chain migration" is spouses and children of US citizens, who are not eligible for any benefits in the years leading to naturalization, while still paying all the taxes (at an income that is on average higher than average in the country). While some people (including older people) will end up using more benefits than they paid in the system, overall immigration is a massive asset to the country. To put it in other words, imagine if you were not allowed to bring your aging parent here -- would you move to the United States, or have to stay in your home country to care for them? Would you want the US government to force you in this choice?
 
The lady in question made the United States her home. She lives here now, and she will probably die here. She deserves to be a citizen, and she deserves the dignity of being able to live well.

The paper you quoted suggests 132,961 out of 1,051,031 for the year 2015. That's incredibly close to the number I provided of 33k in Q1 2018.  And your example doesn't prove or disprove anything. This is data that can only be interpreted in aggregate. I skipped lunch yesterday, and yet most people had lunch, my experience is irrelevant.
 
You can't just look at a number out of context. 33 thousand people is 0.01% of the US population. It is a negligible number. More babies are born in this country in 4 days. More people die in this country in 5 days. 
 
The concern isn't valid. It's hurtful and insulting. Fearmongering against immigrants (especially on this forum!) makes us all worse off. 

This is mandatory spending in the US budget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget#Mandatory_spending_and_entitlements 
This is immigration by category: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/special-reports/legal-immigration#File_end (see table 1B in the attachment), specifically in Q1 of 2018 33,460 immigrant visas were granted to parents out of 263,988 total.
 
These are facts, not opinions.
The only thing that is an opinion here is that she deserves dignity, which I hope you agree with.

This entire statement is highly inappropriate for the immigration interview and also is almost entirely incorrect.
 
She herself will almost certainly not be able to get medicaid, since it is a program for low-income individuals. She most certainly will get Medicare (and Social Security) as the federal government literally exists to provide these benefits (they are mandatory and constitute over half of the budget). Suggesting that the system might run out of money is as ludicrous as suggesting that the US government might not be able to either collect taxes or raise debt. With enough luck, soon she will be able to enroll in Medicare for All, and then forget worrying about being able to afford healthcare (much like in most other rich countries).
 
But also, the majority of so-called "chain migration" is spouses and children of US citizens, who are not eligible for any benefits in the years leading to naturalization, while still paying all the taxes (at an income that is on average higher than average in the country). While some people (including older people) will end up using more benefits than they paid in the system, overall immigration is a massive asset to the country. To put it in other words, imagine if you were not allowed to bring your aging parent here -- would you move to the United States, or have to stay in your home country to care for them? Would you want the US government to force you in this choice?
 
The lady in question made the United States her home. She lives here now, and she will probably die here. She deserves to be a citizen, and she deserves the dignity of being able to live well.