Giovanni1

So I am finally done, I became a US Citizen on Oct 9th. Too late to register to vote in my state. I applied for a passport the same day, and based on current backlogs I am supposed to get it by the end of the year. With the passport application I had to send the original of the naturalization certificate. So right now I have no proof of citizenship and cannot update my status with the SSA, but I guess I can live with that. It feels good to have made it, good luck to everyone!

So I am done, the oath ceremony was this morning in the AJC building. About 15 people, we got to the office, one at the time. Once everybody had got in and signed the naturalization certificate and returned their green card, we were given the welcome package. Then a USCIS officer administered the oath, gave us the certificate, and gone we were. The entire thing took 20 minutes. I have just applied for a passport, forms can be printed online and delivered to the court house. Cost $145 for regular process (no express). It should be here by the end of the year. Note that they want the original naturalization certificate, they will return it later.

The USCIS website shows a notice that my oath ceremony has been scheduled for October 9, that makes less than 3 weeks from interview and oath. The location is the same USCIS office in Cleveland where I had the interview on Sept 21.

No guests are allowed to attend due to COVID19 restrictions. I asked to bring all documents relesead by USCIS  (AED, old green cards, etc) and the Form N455 filled and signed (that comes in the mail with the location and date time of the ceremony)

A friend of mine who became citizen last week told me the whole thing takes about 30 minutes, just the time to be sworn in and take a picture.

6 hours ago, Réina17 said:

The online status is now saying this but my online account is still the same. Good luck everybody, hope my experience helps!

Congratulations! The Cleveland office is very efficient & fast. I got the oath date 3 days after the interview (and there was a weekend in between). The office itself sent me the letter with the oath date right away (it was also available on the website, under documents), and few days later I got the same letter directly from USCIS.

9 minutes ago, Réina17 said:

Hey @Giovanni1, did your oath letter say anything about bringing guests to the ceremony?

The letter says no guests are allowed. The ceremony is in the AJC federal building. Perhaps at the library or other locations they allow.

The USCIS website shows a notice that my oath ceremony has been scheduled for October 9, in the same federal building. That's less than 3 weeks from interview and oath. Too late to register to vote but I am still happy. Cleveland ought to be the best place to become a citizen.

2 hours ago, -Shana- said:

That's true. How was the test? I've been doing a practice test each day to prepare.

The all thing was very easy and comfortable. I was in and out of the building in 40 minutes, including security check and wait.

First they verify the info they have are current, employer, job title, address, phone number, etc.

Then the test itself. If I remember correctly those were the questions:

- Who does a senator represent?

- Who vetoes bill?

- Name a branch of the government

- Who's the commander in chief?

- If the President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
- Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general.  What war was he in?

The officer mentioned the questions were randomly selected by the computer. Also for the writing test, I had to write on a tablet. Same for the signatures, no pen or paper. The phrase I had to write was something like "The flag is Blue White and Red".
Then some questions based on the N400, have you ever been a terrorist, nazi, communist, prostitute, drunkard. Have you ever had problems with the law, arrested, DUI, etc.

At the end he told me he will recommend me for approval and gave a form.

This morning I got a notice that I was approved and the final step is the oath and that I will be notified when it is scheduled. So compared to the green card process, and despite the delays and anxiety due COVID19, naturalization so far has been a walk in the park.

This morning I got an email from USCIS that an action was taken on my case. The website says my application has been approved and the final step is to attend the oath ceremony and I will receive an appointment once that is scheduled. Now on the site the estimate for completion of my case is back (it was gone when the interview was scheduled). It says December 2020 (3 months). From researching existing timelines on this website, it looks like CLE in the past would schedule the oath ceremony 2-4 weeks after the interview. So I guess either the information is  not reliable or after the lockdown there is a backlog. In any case it's another step forward but it ain't over till it's over, the wait continues.

4 hours ago, -Shana- said:

Wow, seems like they've got their stuff figured out where you are! Nice that they used your old biometrics, I'm still baffled they have to do it for a third time since arriving in America. Congratulations! I hope your oath ceremony is soon

Yeah, Cleveland is one of the fastest office in the country. My friend in Des Moines also had a good experience, had the interview in January, then left the country before the oath and could not come back until late summer due to COVID19. They were accommodating in the multiple rescheduling. I guess the Midwest in general is easier, lower populations and probably even less immigration as compared to the coasts.

4 minutes ago, Réina17 said:

Congrats!!! Just curious, what civics questions did he ask you?

If I remember correctly those were the questions:

- Who does a senator represent?

- Who vetoes bill?

- Name a branch of the government

- Who's the commander in chief?

- If the President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
- Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general.  What war was he in?

The officer mentioned the questions were randomly selected by the computer. Also for the writing test, I had to write on a tablet. Same for the signatures, no pen or paper. The phrase I had to write was something like "The flag is Blue White and Red"

Today I had the naturalization interview. I was an easy and fast process, I was in and out of the AJC Federal Building in about 40 minutes. After the security checkpoint (they made people wait in the lobby until 15 minutes before the appointment), I checked in with USCIS. There were few couples and single people also waiting, and it looked like the office (in Cleveland, Ohio) was fully operational, I saw at least 3-4 interviews going on at the same time. After a 10 minutes wait, I was called in by the USCIS officer, who sworn me in and asked for my GC, state id and passport. Those were the only documents he asked, even though the letter asked to bring marriage certificate, spouse proof of citizenship and other stuff. After going through some questions about the N400 (current employer, job title, address & phone number, etc), he proceeded with the civic test followed by the reading and writing test. Afterwards, he asked few routine questions such as: have you ever been associated with nazi/communists/terrorists, problems with the law (asked me about a speeding ticket from 15 years ago), and such and such. At the end he returned my documents, told me he was going to recommend me for approval, and gave me a form with the recommendation. He said most likely I will receive an appointment for the oath ceremony within a month but with the COVID situation it's hard to predict. So, overall it was very straightforward. Anyways, I hope that helps and good luck to everyone.

Today I had my interview. I was an easy and fast process, I was in and out of the AJC Federal Building in about 40 minutes. After the security checkpoint (they made people wait in the lobby until 15 minutes before the appointment), I checked in at USCIS on the 5th floor. There were few couples and single people also waiting, and it looked like the office was fully operational, I saw at least 3-4 interviews going on at the same time. After a 10 minutes wait, I was called in by the USCIS officer, who sworn me in and asked for my GC, state id and passport. Those were the only documents he asked, even though the letter asked to bring marriage certificate, spouse proof of citizenship and other stuff. After going through some questions about my N400 (current employer, job title, address & phone number, etc), he proceeded with the civic test followed by the reading and writing test. Afterwards, he asked few routine questions such as: have you ever been associated with nazi/communist party/terrorist associations, problems with the law (asked questions about a speeding ticket from 15 years ago), and such and such. At the end he returned my documents, gave a form and told me he was going to recommend me for approval, and most likely I will receive an appointment for the oath ceremony within a month. So, overall it was very straightforward. It turns out there is a ceremony scheduled for October 2nd at the Public Library, but I am not sure I will be approved by then. Anyways, hope that helps and good luck to everyone.

6 hours ago, patt said:

I am with the San Jose office. I haven't heard anything either since my bio appointment was cancelled in March. I sent them an email a week ago but only just got a very generic response that I need to wait for my appointment to be rescheduled.  My ASC in Salinas reopened on 07/27 so I will probably wait till October to call when I hit the 90 day mark.

You can also consider asking one of your elected officials to contact USCIS on your behalf. Their website should have a form to fill for this purpose. I did that over the summer, one of my senator staff got back to me requesting more info, I had hard time finding a place to print a form, and in the meanwhile USCIS scheduled my interview. It takes time but I didn't really want to call USCIS.

In trying to find out if it's possible to have interview and oath ceremony on the same day, I found this webpage with the schedule of ceremonies.

Apparently a ceremony occurred last week at the Court House in Cleveland, which is a different location from ACJ building where USCIS conducts interviews.

https://www.ohnd.uscourts.gov/naturalization-schedule

More info here https://globalcleveland.org/portfolio/welcoming-week-2020/

Hope that useful to someone.

20 hours ago, princesseve said:

Hi....everyone,

I am so glad that I found out I have a lot of friends who will have interview at Cleveland, Ohio 😄😄

I submitted N400 package around Mid of May..just got an interview date on Oct 16,2020

Wondering...Oath ceremony will be on the same date or not.

 

Hope you guys doing well and moving fast 

I will update more 🥰🥰

Congratulations, I submitted in March and got interview scheduled in September, so six months wait. I believe somebody from this forum had an interview in CLE in July and then took the oath 2-3 weeks later, so probably they do not do same day oath. I would be nice. We'll see. Mine is on September 21, will share how it goes.

1 hour ago, USAjune2016 said:

Great it would be helpful to know if these 3 applicants have pending ROCs with their N-400 that way we understand why some people get faster interviews even in the same field office.

I asked the question on ROC in the CLE thread I mentioned above, please take look, somebody already posted an answer.

I was wondering if anybody with an interview scheduled in Cleveland has a pending ROC. They were asking in the March 2020 thread to have an idea of how things are proceeding.

1 hour ago, USAjune2016 said:

 Yes true but do you have any idea if those couple interviews for march filers all have I-751 pending because I’m thinking that they might be prioritizing those otherwise people would have to go for a stamp. 
as regarding Cleveland I wouldn’t even compare anything to this office. Super efficient and doing their job perfectly. 

I did ROC in 2019,  approved without interview, and the biometrics are being reused for N400. I believe the other person mentioned they had biometric reused from long time ago so probably they also already went through ROC in the past.
Here is the Cleveland thread, it might be worth to follow since it moves quickly. I believe there is 3 of us with scheduled interview, on 9/21, 9/23 and 10/1.
I posted your question there re interviews and ROC there.

1 hour ago, USAjune2016 said:

 The only movement that I noticed for March filers is the Biometric reuse letter that was sent to some people only. Another thing was an interview scheduled for someone with I-751 pending. It’s definitely stressful but in my opinion it’s nothing to worry about and at least our cases went through the process already hopefully we won’t be affected by the USCIS recent changes because they’re going to cancel contracts with third party companies that helps them processing those cases. 
Good Luck! 

There are a couple of naturalization interviews that I am aware of, myself (march 2020) and another resident in the Cleveland OH office (I believe a June 2020 filer ), scheduled for late September / Early October. CLE has been one of the fastest office in the country so I would not despair if other offices are being slower.

8 hours ago, Réina17 said:

UPDATE - got an interview date. October 1, 2020 @ 1:30 PM.

Ah-mazing! Best of luck, hopefully we'll soon be done with USCIS.

On 8/13/2020 at 6:09 PM, Scandi said:

I don't know but I'm assuming the "biometrics waived" message isn't tied to when you filed, but tied to when you will have your interview. I for instance have a case completion time for next year, so they haven't waived my biometrics or given me a biometrics appointment yet as my case has so much time left on it, it'll happen further down the line. But for someone who has a case completion time that ends fairly soon, they might get biometrics waived as they will have their interviews so soon that they waive the biometrics for them.

My understanding is that biometrics that were recently taken, can be reused. In my case, I was fingerprinted in June 2019 for ROC, and now they are reusing them for N400. Somewhere I read that biometrics are good for 18 months. There is also the possibility that being underfunded, USCIS wants to cut costs, since the biometrics fee is not refunded even if bio metrics are reused.

Interesting, I read somewhere USCIS can reuse biometrics that are up to 18 months old. Perhaps they are really short on cash and are trying to cut costs. No complaints from my side 😆

I was never requested to join SS having entered the country for the first time past the age of 26. But for peace of mind, and since it's free, I requested the letter from SS. I am told it might take 30 days to process the request, so I might not be able to get it on time for the naturalization interview. In case I plan to bring the default letter mentioned above. In worse case scenario, I am told USCIS allows up to 90 days to submit documents requested during the interview. But hopefully that won't be necessary.

Worth to mention, my biometrics from ROC (June 2019) were reused for the naturalization, so I skipped the biometrics step. The $85 bio-fee was not refunded.
Also, since they received the application, the USCIS website has indicated August 2020 as completion date. So I believe the Cleveland office is quite reliable and fast in processing applications.

On 8/11/2020 at 5:37 PM, Luckycuds said:

Personally I would bring the letter. Age 26 was the cut off (not 31 FYI). My husband didn’t have to register since he arrived after age 26 but we have obtained the letter because we have needed it in order to apply for financial aid in the past.

What evidence did you provide to SSS that he arrived past age 26? They seems to require tons of material, like proof I was living abroad at age 18 to 26, it was ages ago for me.