eatphyllosophical

Just one final update in our journey - 
 
My husband applied for his U.S. passport on 5/25. The status updated to "In process" on 5/31. Yesterday, it changed to "Approved" and today it is out for delivery, per the tracking number.
 
We paid for expedited service and faster shipping, and it's been exactly 7 weeks since we submitted the application. 

My immigration journey is over! You can see details on our timeline; here are the highlights of our story:
- I came to the US on a student visa, completed my degree 
- Fell in love and got married, applied for I-130 and I-485, got 2 year green card 
- Applied for ROC, I-751
- As soon as I was eligible, applied for Naturalization, N-400 
- My oath ceremony was today and I couldn’t be happier to be a U.S. citizen 
 
The entire process from green card application to citizenship took a little over 4 years. We did it all it all it without attorneys. While there were frustrations, they were mostly because of the unknowns and all the waiting. In hindsight, it was pretty smooth. USCIS managed my N-400 with a pending I-751 remarkably well. We suffered the same roller coaster emotions many of us have shared on these forums, but looking back, while it was expensive and tedious, it actually worked. It’s hard to trust big, complicated bureaucratic processes. You and others have been so helpful. I learned so much from others’ experiences and treasure the support and guidance from all of you. Visajourney provides valuable information not available through UCIS or attorneys. So, thank you. I will remain on Visajourney to help anyone who can benefit from our experience. 
 

Waiting ten days is recommended. Just before my husband's oath ceremony, they gave advise on what a new citizen needs to do, like registering to vote, updating with Social Security, updating your Driver's license, and getting a US passport. They also gave out a helpful handout that explains what to do. It's in this PDF, too. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/flyers/M-767.pdf
Enjoy your special day!

Oath ceremony letter showed up online on 13- June- 2023 / ceremony will be on 27-June-2023 can’t wait . 
 
I will try to go to the Social Security Office and the Driver license and update the status after the ceremony since they are pretty close by . 
 
@Joyoussinger Do the social security office will accept to update same day or have to wait 10 days ? 
thanks in advance . 

so texas jumped to 28.5 months and i am so angry. 
i am trying to be patient but when we filed the turn around time was 8 months for Texas. The earliest I can even do anything is March 2025 if it even stays at that processing time. 

Got Certificate of citizenship. Finally, the journey is over

I appeared for the interview. It lasted about 12 minutes.
2 minutes for Civic test, only six questions had been asked, Then read & write test for half a minute.
Yes ' No questions and some personal questions. 
 
 
 

The interview went well and I was approved for a special oath ceremony on 7/4 (Seattle). 
 
Appointment at 2pm. 
Called into interview room at 3:45pm (yep!)
Questions I remember: Who was the President during WW I, What is the name of the national anthem, Why are there 50 stars, and three more which I don't remember. Some easy reading and writing. 
 
Spent next 5 mins going through answers in my application. Nothing out of the ordinary. Updated the number of marriages for my spouse from 0 to 1 (basically fixed the error). 
 
Spent next 5 mins convincing me to take the Oath on 7/4 vs. later (I told them I might be travelling over the long weekend so will prefer a different date). Ended up agreeing to 7/4. 
 
That's all folks! 

I doubt it
 
No, and besides which that ship has sailed. The ISO(s) who adjudicated I-130 or I-485  could have raised the issue then. 
 
Unless the LPR had foreign earned income since becoming an LPR, I see no reason why an ISO would ask for this when tax return transcripts are provided.

Good luck to you!
 
Sukie in NY

Just the printouts of vacations photos, tax transcript downloaded from online irs account, joint house title, bank accounts, child birth certificate, car insurance, health insurance, life insurance..nothing was certified..just downloaded everything from my online accounts and printed it...i was never asked for any evidence by the interviewer

Feels like a dream. Yesterday, N400 status updated to "approved" Today, I-751 status changed as well. Thank God :)

Last step updated too :)

Ok...my i751 was already at NBC since i filed in jan 2022. My n400 interview is next week. I called uscis customer care to ask them if they any info on my i751 if it already transferred to my local field office. They said YES. To make sure, they are not saying stuff randomly, I asked them the date when did it get transferred. They provided me the date. You can also call uscis and confirm it when u r near ur interview date. Good luck

sorry, I don't have a solution for this. Just want to send my good luck to you!! I heard the worse is you need to contact your congressman. The best to you!!

I passed my N400 interview today but a decision could not be made because my I-751 which I filed September 2021 is still pending. Anyone else have this happen and if so how long did it take?

Just updating following my husband's N-400 interview (Montgomery, AL Field Office).
 
The appointment was at 9:30AM, and we went in at 9:15AM. I was not allowed to go inside. He was called back at 9:35AM and was finished at 9:55AM.
 
The civics questions that he was asked:
Who is the current president? What is the political party of the president now? Why does the flag have 50 stars? In what month do we vote for president? Name one war fought by the US in the 1900s. What does the constitution do? He was not asked anything at all about the pending I-751, and other than confirming that we are still married, there were no questions pertaining to our relationship. She did not look at or ask for any documents, except the green card. After going through all the usual questions in the N-400, he was approved and immediately scheduled for the oath at 11:30AM today. I wasn't allowed to go inside for that either, but was able to watch through large windows into the room. The oath was finished in 15 minutes, he got his naturalization certificate, and left the office a U.S. Citizen!!! 
 
Case status for I-751 now says "Interview Was Completed And My Case Must Be Reviewed" (which I am just ignoring, lol) and N-400 case status says "Certificate Of Naturalization Was Issued"
 
Very very happy to be done with this huge milestone and finished with USCIS! 
 
 

Read my post above..

It wouldn't hurt I guess.
Yes, you could have uploaded this into evidence section along with a letter asking for a combo interview due to pending I-751. It also doesn't always guarantee USCIS will honor it.

Thank you so much! I was being silly not to check the document 📄 section 😅.
 
Interview date is June 5th. Good luck to me and all! 😁

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
My husband is now a US citizen! His appointment was yesterday 11/27 at 9:30 am in Newark, NJ. We arrived one hour early and had to wait two hours to be seen. Check in was smooth, just the wait was long. My husband described the interview as smooth and said the officer was very nice. He answer the first 6 questions correct. Among the questions were: what year was the constitution written? Name a war in the 1900s, who was president during WWI? What do the stripes on the flag represent? (Can’t remember the rest). I did not go inside the interview office with him. The officer asked if I was his wife (he saw me in the waiting room). Fun fact: the officer walked in the waiting room and knew exactly who my husband was, he just pointed at him and said to follow him. 
After the reading and writing part, they asked him the yes/no questions on the application. Then he was congratulated and given the “pass” form. 
A nice thing about Newark is that everyone takes their Oath the same day so we went from super happy to overwhelmingly happy and grateful after witnessing such beautiful ceremony. 81 new citizens from 32 diff countries! Amazing!
So now we are over with this immigration Journey and more thank Thankful to God, who has been walking with us every step of the way,  to this community of Visa Journey for providing such platform to educate, keep us informed and form support groups during the various immigration processes.
Good luck to the rest of you and stay positive!

Well, today was interview day for my wife’s N400. We were still waiting for her I-751 approval as well, so I went with her in hopes of a combination interview (as recommended by the USCIS call center). Initially the guard only let my wife upstairs, but when they called her back for the interview and saw I was stuck outside, they came down and got me for the combo interview.

Excited to say both the I-751 and N400 were approved today! While the interview time was too late for a same day oath taking, she instead gets to be part of the big formal oath ceremony here in Seattle on July 4th, which should be awesome! 
 
We wanted to say thank you to everyone on this forum. While we didn’t post a lot, we learned so much about the process from this forum (including finding out about the DCF process that started this journey off when that existed and I was living in the Philippines) and the experiences and help you all give everyone here. 
 
just a quick item that may help others as they’re searching for tips… for all of our applications throughout the process we went a little heavier on evidence than we probably needed to. Lots of photos and other documents showing our life together.

I asked the officer about that when we finished the process and she noted it was a lot (not the most she’s seen thankfully), but that it was really helpful and gave her no doubt we were truly married. She also mentioned that it was very easy to follow because we organized into sections and had a cover letter with table of contents. That’s probably one reason I-751 interview was so quick today. So I guess for anyone starting the process I’d suggest killing a few trees and sending in maybe a little more evidence that the minimum noted on the application. Just make sure it’s relevant / quality evidence of course. 
 
best wishes for a speedy approval for everyone else waiting!!

Get a state ID asap. It will lessen the hassle when traveling domestic. Go to DMV or DDS.

Don't worry. Going in, Argentina won't ask for anything US related, just your passport. You will have to show your documents (GC + extension letter) at the counter in Argentina when you are going back to the US so it's the airline folks looking at your documents, not Argentinian officers. I did this in 2019 in Chile (flew LATAM) and no issues whatsoever. I did it as well in China and had no issues either.

Filing an N-400 did nothing for my I-751. It’s been seven and a half months since I submitted my naturalization application online and nothing. I’m seeing people getting approved in six months, and my USCIS online account says there’s a “5-month wait” for naturalization. My removal of conditions is gonna turn 20 months old in two weeks. It had a bump a month after I filed the N-400: it got transferred to the NBC. That’s been it since then.