Magi Stark

Yeeeeeeeeees 😫😩😭

My interview was already on 7/7.

No, BUT... I deleted all social media off my phone out of an abundance of caution anyway. Also, all of my social media accounts are private, none of them have a public picture of me, none of them have my real name, and the email I use for social media isn't the same I use for USCIS. So even if they wanted to, they'd never find anything about me, lol.

I'm furiously Googling, but everything seems to indicate they either use GC picture if they re-use biometrics, or they use the picture taken during N-400 biometrics. 😭

LOL. Hell no. You seen that smiley chihuahua pic floating around? That's EXACTLY what I look like. I wanted to smile, but I never got a warning the pic was coming, so it was a very unfortunate angle + timing + gestures. UGH. I LOATH looking at that picture. FML!

WHAT!!! 😱 Somehow I did not know this. I thought they took a picture before the oath, and that's why we had to show up early. UGH! That GC picture is seriously one of the ugliest pictures of me of all time. I still have a grudge with that person for telling me I looked "fine". 😒.

Still waiting on the oath ceremony scheduling, but I have TWO international trips in the next few months, and considering my luck I just know it's going to be either during or right before, lol. So an emergency passport is in the forecast. I know I have to be within 14 days of the trip to be able to make an emergency appointment. Can I schedule an appointment before for after the ceremony, or do I have to wait to be a citizen to even make the appointment? I don't want to inadvertently make a "false claim of citizenship". Example: Oath is 8/21. Trip is on 8/28. Make appointment on 8/18 (not a citizen yet) for 8/25 (citizen). Also, how certain is it to be able to even get an appointment? Are there cases where appointments are just not available, period? Under no circumstances am I rescheduling the oath. So I want to plan ahead to minimize the economic impact on cancelling/rescheduling my trips.

Only from anecdotal evidence based on what you find online. Even then, just because it happened to certain people doesn't mean it happens to everyone at the same field office. I used Google: "N-400 <field office> same-day oath". If you add "reddit" or "visa journey" or another immigration forum at the end, you can narrow your search even more. You can also ask directly on one of the N-400 facebook groups to see if anyone has in the same field office has a recent experience.

Can confirm, 7/7 interview. The civics test is oral, and there are no multiple choices given to you. You have to know the answer, and the answer must be oral as well. The written test is on a tablet. You are given a tablet to read a sentence. Then you have to write that same sentence (at least that was my case) back on the tablet.

You have two issues here: Continuous residence: Be an LPR for 5 years. Physical presence: be physically present in the US for 30 months (or 913 days or 2.5 years) out of those 5 years. If your parents are already not living full time in the US, this could present a problem, especially under the current administration. The rule of thumb is you should spend more time per year in the US than out of the US, even if it's less than 6 months. So if you're doing 4 months abroad, 2 months in, 5 months abroad, 3 month in, 4 months abroad, 1 months in, etc., this represents an issue for the continuous residence as USCIS might determine you broke continuous residence by staying out of the US so much, even if the trips were less than 6 months and the total time in the US adds up to 30 months by the time you apply. Assuming they turn a blind eye to that, or time spent abroad is not as bad, you still have the physical requirement to meet. You and your parents have to sit down and count every single day spent out of the US, (the day you depart and the day you return count as days in the US), and time in the US cannot total less than 30 months (or 913 days) by the time the oath takes place. Some offices will be more strict than others in this regard. If you're missing a few days to a couple weeks, some offices will just wait and schedule you later, while some offices might deny the case and ask you to reapply. For the physical requirement, yes, every little trip counts. So if your parents have already spent too much time abroad, and plan on continuing to spend months at a time abroad, and take week-long trips regularly, it's very unlikely they'll qualify for citizenship. They're almost 2 years into their 5 year residence. If they've already spent more time abroad than in the US, just assume you have to start over, or start counting from the last entry when time in the US exceeds their time abroad. If they've spent more time in the US than abroad, just make sure they continue to do that and make sure they have met the physical number of days in the US ideally by the time they apply. It just much easier that way. If you haven't taken a look at the N-400, you have to list every single trip taken during your LPR period. You have to list days you departed/returned and where you went. Start an Excel spreadsheet with the same format as the N-400 for trips abroad and start keeping track of your trips now.

MN here. Can confirm. Real ID is just a type of ID that meets minimum federal requirements of identification. Enhanced Driver's Licenses are a special type of ID that serve as proof of citizenship, and they qualify as being Real ID compliant. EDLs can be used for land/sea crossings between the US - Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Get EVERYTHING! The advantage of an EDL is that it's one less thing to carry around on a daily basis.

Been a super busy week, so just getting around to posting an update. Interview successfully completed on July 7th, although it was a bit of an unusual experience. Officer was a formal and to-the-point lady. She wasn’t rude, but she wasn’t super friendly either. My attorney said he’d never seen her before, so likely a new officer. Started by getting sworn in and verifying my personal info. She asked for my DL, GC, and SSC. Then the civics test (answered first 6 questions correctly) and the English test. Then, we went over pretty much the entire N-400 application - addresses, jobs, trips abroad, citations, yes/no, etc. I’ve had a couple immigration violations in the past, which had all been disclosed, so there were some questions about that, then we moved on. Because of this, I was fully expecting a “can’t make a decision right now” checkbox. This is where things got a little confusing. Towards the end of the interview, the officer became a little friendlier and started speaking like she was ready to approve the application. She touched on the oath ceremony, updating the SSN, asked about upcoming trips, and said to stay out of trouble until the oath. Then, as I was reading the tablet verifying everything before signing off, she puts my giant file on the table, and says everything seems in order and I should get approved, but she still can’t make a decision as she has to go over the entire file more in detail. She said to give her a couple weeks or so. Then, she hands me the N-652 with “Congratulations! Your application has been recommended for approval” checked. And I was like, o_O , what just happened? The next day I got the approval + in line for oath updates. Two days later I got a cancelled scheduled oath + oath will be scheduled updates. But as far as I can tell from my history and API updates, I was never actually scheduled for an oath ceremony, so not sure what that’s about. Anywhoo, here I am still a bit confused, relieved, excited, and back to checking my USCIS account every 2 hours, lol. Anybody happen to know if there’s a difference between “Your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, was placed in line for oath ceremony scheduling” and “Oath Ceremony Will Be Scheduled”? It had never really hit me that there’s two differently worded updates for the same thing.

That's the NEXT step. It doesn't mean your interview HAS been scheduled, it means it HASN'T been scheduled yet.

From when I researched this, it seems to indicate you're applying under general 5-year rule/provision. However, I don't know if that's 100% accurate, nor can I verify where the source got the info. Like all other codes, it's mostly collective mind-hive guess work. 😃