asid

My experience was quick and painless. See my signature timeline. Good luck.

My experience was reasonably quick. See timeline below.

I got the passport without any questions about my signature. I signed both the picture and naturalization certificate with my normal signature as opposed to writing my full name.

The process at the CT passport agency was pretty quick. About 45 mins to handover my docs and 15 mins to pick up the passport the next day.

You should check if there are other locations in WA that may have an earlier oath ceremony for you to attend. CT has 3 locations and I suspect the oath ceremonies are on different days. My interview was at the DO in hartford (sole DO) but oath ceremony in New Haven. In my case the interview offiers had a letter ready with date/time and New Haven location. I am not sure if I could have asked him for an earlier date at another location.

I have seen much conflicting info on this on the various forums and web pages I have searched. You should be able to track down a bunch of threads with the various forum searches and Google.

The advice that I found most believable was that the signature on the certificate should be the same as how you signed the photograph. That just made a lot of sense to me because it's a good confirmation that the photo and the certificate belong together. I did ask before I signed it in Phily and the officers said to sign with normal sig.

But usual cautions apply, I don't know absolutely for sure.

Thanks for the additional info. Agree that it makes sense, in my case, to sign my normal signature that is already on the picture. The USCIS official who did the interview told me to sign my normal signature.

Will let you know if I get shut down at the passport office next week.

The journey is finally over. I had the oath ceremony on the 8th in New Haven.

When we got to the courts at 12.20pm the room was almost full and we barely managed to get three seat together. The USCIS officials had already started explaining the process ahead of the 12.30pm scheduled time. The process at the New haven courts seemed very organized. Citizens of 35 countries took the oath that day

- Our names are called and we walk to the front of the room to handover form and green card.

- Then the judge arrives and we take the oath

- The judge then spoke for about 10 mins touching on her immigrant grandparent from Russia, congrats, welcome, etc

- Each person's name is called up again to collect the certificate.

The last person got the certificate by 2pm. There's lots of sitting around waiting for the next step while the USCIS folks sort out all the paperwork.

After reading Phl nov08's comments about the signature, I have a decision to make. I signed my normal signature on the picture that's on the naturalization cert, but at the ceremony the USCIS handed out a sheet of paper that says the Nat. cert is invalid if it is not signed with the full name. It's good to know that the message was different in Philly.

I have an appointment at the CT passport office next week to get a same-day passport as I have a trip at the end of the month. The signature decision will be made by then.

Good luck to everyone still waiting to complete the process. I will miss checking VJ regularly, but see myself checking until all of us Nov08s get done. Cheers

My signature below shows the short timeline when I rescheduled the interview. I had to be away for my brother's wedding and I said so in the letter requesting a new interview date.

Your partner does need to mail a request for a new interview date once he gets the letter to avoid further delays (if he's a no show). Hopefully someone is there to pick up his mail in the US, while he's away for two months. Good luck

I got my interview appointment letter less than 2 weeks after getting the yellow one.

As Philosykos says the folks in the adj of status section will be better versed with the current timelines. Just for referance I was on an H1B when I got married in the fall of 2004 and I will have my citizenship oath in two weeks. I believe the processing times can be meaningfully quicker today than what I experienced starting in 2004. Good luck

I find it tough to believe that Concord, NH has booked all the oath ceremony spots for the rest of 2009. We are only in April and I suspect they book 2 months in advance, at best. Just a thought, as you should be able to re-schedule without an excessive delay under normal circumstances. I was able to reschedule the interview, which got pushed back two weeks. Hopefully someone who's rescheduled an oath will be able to comment, although Concord may have peculiar rules/constraints that may indeed push the next available slot to 2010.

I had my interview today, which went well. Oath on May 8th in New Haven, a more convenient location for us. More details on the experience below.

I got to the security line at 8.50am for a 9.15am appointment. I was alone as I didn't want the little one to miss school or wake up at 6am to leave for Hartford. The security is very thorough but there are two lines and I got through security in 5 mins. I was back in the Hartford office after 3+ years and much has changed for the better. My permanent resident interview 3yrs ago was on the third floor where the waiting room was tiny and people overflowed into the corridor. The new ground floor waiting room is large and spacious and it was about 25% filled today with roughly 25-30 people.

I handed the interview notice to the receptionist and was seated in the waiting room by 9am. After 15min my name was called by an IO. I went into his office, raised my right hand and swear to tell the thruth. He starts off with the test: 1. Who becomes president if president and vp are unavailable; 2. How long is a senator's term; 3. # of justices on SC; 4. what does the cabinet do; 5. what did the declaration of independance do; I forget the last question.

He then started going thru the yes/no questions on the application, which takes a good deal of time I discovered. Then he updated the travel outside the US info as I'd been out twice since filing. It was an easy light hearted conversation with me talking about the two trips and the IO talking about his travels to the same country. He then asked if I'd brought any updated docs to prove residence/marriage. I showed a draft of our '08 taxes and bank statements. He gave back the tax doc and kept the banks statememts.

Finally, I signed the pics and signed a name change document. He then handed me the oath letter for May 8th. The conversation was flowing and very friendly throughtout the meeting. He shook my hand, congratulated me and walked me to the exit. I was in my car and leaving Hartford by 9.45am. I can't say enough good things about my two interview experiences in Hartford (GC 3 yrs ago and this one).

At no point did the IO ask anything about my wife's whereabouts. He clearly saw that I was alone when he called my name in the waiting room. I was concerned about going alone, as the Nov filers know. Looking forward to a lovely spring oath ceremony.

Received a yellow paper from NBC today that states "Case File Review Notice / Interview Document Check List"

My hubby is asked t bring some documents at the interview

Question: -After receiving this yellow paper, how many days do you think are we going to receive the Interview

Appointment Letter???

-Why we didn't receive this yellow letter with the Interview Appointment Letter???

-Is this common???

I got my interview appointment notice within a couple of weeks, at most, of getting the yellow letter. Can't remember the exact dates/timing but it wasn't too far apart.

Britbird/lomeshp, Thanks for the interview color. Speed dial it shall be.

Just did and it took about one month. See my signature for details.

I just re-scheduled my interview. It took about one month to get a new interview date ( my signature has more exact dates) even though Hartford, CT is one of the slower district offices. And, the interview date moved from 3/25 to 4/7 (the earliest I could have done was 4/1) which is hardly a delay.

Congradulations to the recent citizens and those who passed the interviews. It's a pleasure to see most of us moving along at a decent clip.

I have a question for those of who qualified as a spouse of a US citizen. At the interview, did the IO inquire if your spouse was present at the interview location or ask to meet the spouse? I am planing on going alone to the interview as my daughter would have to miss a day of school if my wife came along for the interview. I have also seen a few VJers' experiences where the IO asked to see/meet the spouse (when they weren't there) and so they had to go back for a second interview with the spouse. I realize that the naturalization check list (N-659) does not say the spouse needs to be present at the interview.

Appreciate any color from the recent interview. Cheers.

As a resident of CT my field office is Hartford, but all my biometrics were done at a small office in New Rochelle, NY. That works great as New Rochelle is 20 mins away vs Hartford nearly 1.5 hrs.

I just had to reschedule my naturalization interview and was pleasantly surprised by the quick response. Also note that Hartford CT is one of the slowest offices in the country to process N-400 applications.

1/24 recieve letter for March 25th interview in Hartford, CT

1/25 mail letter to Hartford requesting a new interview date - out of the country on previously scheduled event.

2/12 recieve notice from NBC that my request for new interview date was recieved

2/21 recieve notice for April 7th interview (notice mailed from NBC in missouri)

I got the notice for my rescheduled interview - April 7th. Pleasantly surprised by the response (about one month) from Hartford and NBC. All the notices were mailed from Missouri although I wrote/mailed request to Hartford.

I got the interview letter yesterday ( interview date March 25th). This is absolutely shocking as the USCIS site has Hartford CT processing N-400 filed in Oct, 2007 (was stuck on June 2007) for many months. I was expecting a letter somewhere around Feb/Mar '09 judging by some of the other Hartford filers' timelines on this website. Goes to show that the processing timeline on the USCIS website is perhaps a worst case outcome.

Excitement quickly faded as I realize that I'll be out of the US on March 25th at my brother's wedding. Hoping that Hartford is quick to reschedule interviews. Lomes, appreciate you updating interview date for 3/25. Will update further once I hear back from Hartford on the rescheduled date.

Guys, question for ya: Did any of you file 2 years 9 months from becoming a resident? I am trying to figure out if USCIS is waiting with my file to get to 3 years or something

Thanks in advance

Yeah, I applied close to 2yrs and 9 months after becoming a PR.

On a separate note, I had the quickest biometric outing to date. I was in and out in 7 mins at the New Rochelle, NY office. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was hardly anyone at the office.

Good luck with the interview. Did the lawyers suggest how you might address the issue of staying out of the country for more than 6 months in 2003?

I don't have any utility/rent bills etc as they would have made no sense at that point.

I think I will have to go to the interview and they will ask me to reapply in may ..

Speak to and/or retain a lawyer. This could be money well spent considering some of the potential unfavorable outcomes mentioned by the other VJers. The lawyer won't be able to undo the past but he maybe have dealt with others in your situation.

Swapdude, you need to show evidence that you maintained US residency while you were back in India between Nov '03 and Aug '04. The list of items the USCIS asks for will prove that you maintained residency in the US, even though you weren't physically in the country. If you did NOT maintain residency then your clock might reset to Aug 2004. This means you'll be eligible to apply for naturalization (assuming naturalizing after 5-yrs of residency) around June 2009.

hm thanks for the input...I was wondering about any tax implications if we decide to reside in Canada again for awhile?

You will have to pay uncle Sam the tax differential. That may not be an issue if the tax rate in Canada is higher than the US. You will have the hassle of filing US taxes each year. The US is one of the few nations that taxes your global income (Canada may be another). So if you go work in Hong Kong that has flat income tax rate of around 15%, for example, you'll have to pay the IRS the differance between 15% HK rate and your marginal tax rate according to the IRS schedule. The IRS has a whole section on expat taxes, which is a complicated arena.