gap1

Congrats, i spoke to you through the K1 visa stage Paul and Becky, i had my interview yesterday and got same day oath. So we are done too.

Hey! Of course I remember you, I didn't recognize your new name. Congrats, and thank YOU for being such a huge help to us. That K-1 process was rough. I am so excited for you!

Congradulations! And Thank you for sharing the experiece.

One last question:Do you still remember how many days were between 'in line for oath ceremony' and 'oath ceremony scheduled'.?

Thanks a lot

Thanks! Our timeline is on my signature, but we had an RFE at the interview so our experience was a bit different than most. From our 'RFE response received' and 'oath ceremony scheduled' it was about 2 weeks.

Our oath ceremony was this morning! We are officially done with USCIS! There isn't enough gratitude in the universe to express what Visa Journey has done for us. It was a godsend. Thank you so much to everyone who has dealt with my panic, frustrations, questions, and the people who have been a huge support for us over the last 4.5 years. This website gave us peace of mind we never thought possible.

Good luck to everyone, and just keep in mind that you WILL finish this process.

Hello Gap1, how are you.

If you don't mind, I have two questions:

1. Where is Oath Ceremoney held in Brooklyn? How many family member could be with you at oath ceremoney?

2. How long did you receive the oath letter after status of case being updated to 'oath ceremony secheduled'?

Thank you .

We received the oath appointment letter about a week after our status changed online. The letter has the address and everything you need to bring.

We just finished my husband's oath ceremony this morning! Since we live in Brooklyn, the ceremony was at the Federal Courthouse at 225 Cadman Plaza (right off the Borough Hall subway stop). It is an open event, so you can have as many people come as you like, BUT keep the following in mind:

1. There are a LOT of people getting naturalized in New York City, so they make friends and family sit in a cafeteria on the 3rd floor and watch a closed circuit television showing the courtroom for at least 3 hours while they make the applicants verify their certificate is correct, explain the voting registration form (they can register to vote right at the ceremony) and go through people who have requested name changes. This takes a long time, and during this time you just sit in the room and wait. They make you go through security when you enter the building and you have to check in your cell phone, so you should bring a book. Sadly, you cannot take pictures the entire time, so make sure you get photos before and after the ceremony as you'll have no other chance to do it.

2. There is no guarantee you can go into the courtroom and watch the ceremony in person. This all depends on the amount of people being sworn in that day. We waited upstairs for hours until a court employee called us down, but if it was a busier day we would have had to watch it on a small television screen that you could barely hear. Keep this in mind if you're bringing small children, as one of our friends had a toddler and ended up having to leave before the ceremony as he couldn't take the wait. I wouldn't recommend telling friends or family to get there until at least 10:00, as nothing happened until 11:00, and tell them to go to the 3rd floor cafeteria. The applicant has to be there by 8:30am.

Def going to do that. We have 2 kids, though they're pretty good evidence. But I'll rather be over prepared than under prepared.

Oh kids alone are never sufficient evidence for USCIS! I once read a story from an Australian/American couple being asked for more evidence that they met in person for their initial K-1 petition, as their child's birth certificate wasn't enough haha.

Just remember, they'll ask for a lot of other stuff besides what's on the yellow letter. Don't make the same mistake we did! Make sure you bring proof of your commingled finances (shared bank statements, IRS forms, etc.) as well as proof of joint residency (leases/mortgage) over the last 3 years. They asked us for all of that stuff but had no interest in what was on our letter. Very annoying.

Hello, we went through the NYC office (we're in Brooklyn). See our timeline on my signature, my husband's oath is tomorrow.

They just mean travel documents in a general sense. The passport stamps are fine, that's all we had and it wasn't an issue.

It's not necessary, I didn't go with my husband (as I had to work) and it was no problem whatsoever. There is no reason you would have to go with him as even if you did, they don't let you in the room. It is absolutely not required or even recommended that you accompany him. They're only interested in talking to him, not you.

Just make sure he brings all documentation with him! They asked us for stuff that wasn't on our checklist (as you may have seen from my previous posts). Bring along all commingled finance statements, leases, etc. over the last 3 years.

My husband's oath ceremony is 11/19. Can someone update?

FINALLY!!

UPDATE: Scheduled for the oath today, approved!!!!

Still no news since they received our RFE response.

Yeah, I read your post. I'm really sorry about that. Have you gotten any updates yet?

Nope, only that they received our RFE response.

Thank you so much and congratulations! We are also in Brooklyn right around your timeline, but we had a stupid documentation issue at the interview so now we're stuck waiting for them to reply to our RFE before my husband is scheduled for his oath.

This was very helpful!

Cry me a river. You could be in Liberia right now. What does one expect BUT paper gathering for getting US CITIZENSHIP.

Right, and we could all be starving, or we could be dying from the plague, or we could be enslaved....does that mean no one is allowed to complain about anything ever? Everything could always be worse.

Yes, you expect to gather paperwork to become a citizen of a country, but it becomes increasingly infuriating when there is no logic to the system. This has been four years now of submitting the same stuff over and over again (registered copy here, in duplicate there, don't sign here and make sure you notarize this initial there, oh and we'll need another $1k for the 15th biometrics appointment, you know, in case my husband's fingerprints changed in the last year) and it's obvious the immigration departments do not speak to each other or even reference a centralized database when looking through the files. A database probably doesn't even exist.

I have provided the so-called 'missing' documents that are currently delaying our case countless times on prior forms and packets, yet because we didn't produce them AGAIN when we weren't even asked to bring them to the interview in the first place, they were not yet able to approve him at the interview. It gets to the point where I feel like they're just making up the rules as they go along based on how they feel that day.

When I went for the interview the officer asked me what basis I was filing under. I told her marriage to a citizen (3 years). She asked, why don't you file under the 5 year clause, so I pointed out that it's only been 4 years since I received my green card.. After she figured this out by counting on her fingers she agreed and asked me what proof I have. So I showed her the original marriage certificate and his birth certificate. (I actually mailed in another original marriage certificate with my application but I guess that went into some file somewhere and will never see the light of day.) That was enough for her and she moved on to asking civics questions.

What the interviewing officer did with your husband is very unfair and I'd be mad as hell too.. Sounds like your officer is either having a bad day or is just a jerk. >_>

I'm sure once you send in all the papers they will let things move along and you can put this all behind you. Hang in there, you're almost done!!

My husband said the officer didn't ask him for anything on the 'documentation needed' list they gave us to prepare for the interview. When my husband asked him if he needed our tax documentation (as it was on the freakin' letter!!) he replied with "Nope, I already have all of that right here!" Then he acted surprised when my husband didn't have our financial records and leases, when it wasn't even requested! I honestly think the person processing our N-400 made a mistake when creating our documentation list and wrote down what we already submitted versus what they wanted to see. It's the only explanation. At any rate, I am just really annoyed. I don't mess up the paperwork, I never have for this entire process. I read the instructions meticulously and cross reference at every step of the way.

I know it could be much worse, but I'm just eager to be done with it all.

Thanks for the advice, I'm having my interview next month and I'm preparing my evidence just in case... now I have to go through a bunch of paperwork

Bring EVERYTHING. I've just spent an entire day at work going through our accounts over the last 4 years, scanning, highlighting, digging through old emails on a day we were supposed to finally be celebrating.

This process never ends. The interview was today, and we should have all additional documents sent to them by tomorrow (at least we don't have to send it to a processing center, they gave us the direct address of the local office where the interview took place), but I really hope this doesn't delay his oath for too long. So frustrating! He has been expertly prepared the entire process for the last 4 years, I've made sure he brought a novel's worth of paperwork in duplicate to be on the safe side. We combed through every interview review on here and looked at every document 100 times to be prepared, then this just came out of nowhere.

Yeah, they didn't attach anything additional on our documentation letter for the interview. They only asked for what we brought. The craziest thing? All of the documentation they asked us to bring to the interview they didn't care about. He wasn't asked to show any of it. The only documentation they wanted was the stuff they didn't tell us to bring. It's like they mixed up our letter with another applicant or something.

I just wanted to be done with this, TODAY. I am so sick of gathering documents. Now we have to send some vague documents to a random address and not even know if it's enough for them, and now we don't know if or when he's going to be approved or if the ceremony scheduling will be delayed. Now we have to sit and hit refresh again on the stupid website rather than just being done today.

My husband had his interview today, but they can't yet approve him because they wanted copies of our joint account statements and leases. They did not mention this ANYWHERE in the document list on the letter, not to mention, we've submitted this to them countless times on the other applications. How can they not approve us for something they didn't even say they needed??? I'm fuming angry right now.

I just wanted to post here to warn people to bring everything, even if they don't say it's needed. He went in with only the documents listed on the letter: Green card, passport, tax statements for the last 3 years, both birth certificates, and our marriage certificate. Nope, apparently we have to be mind readers.

Hopefully this only delays us slightly. We are getting it all to them tomorrow, but why do I have a feeling this will take forever to sort out? If they wanted to see it, why the wouldn't they ask for it on the letter???

What questions did they ask you about your application?

I had my interview at Federal Plaza as well and as I was walking out, I overheard one ISO grilling this woman about her travels. So whatever they asked you will give you an idea what made them unsure.

Did you sign up for Selective Service? I've read posts about interviews going well but got the "USCIS will send you a written decision about your application" because they didn't sign up for it.

Selective Service shouldn't be an issue if the person in question applied for an Illinois state ID or license before they were 26 (if applicable). We started our process in Chicago and the state of Illinois automatically signed up my husband when he applied for his ID after moving to the States. If you can't remember, it's very easy to look up here: https://www.sss.gov/regver/wfverification.aspx

Our interview letter was dated 9/10 (received today), interview is scheduled for 10/15 in NYC. Can someone please update the timeline for me?

Same here, we've been 'inline' since 7/7. I just think everything is backed up.

This is my timeline for my citizenship and I live in Queens. I was sworn in this morning in BK! Woohoo! Good luck!!!

application sent 01.10.2014

application recv’d 01.13.2014

Biometrics scheduled notice rec'd 01.30.2014

Biometrics done on 02.20.2014

Interview and testing notice rec'd on

Interview and testing on 06.02.2014

Notice for interview rec’d on 06.10.14

Initial Oath Ceremony on 06.26.2014 (couldn't make it cos I was away for work month of June)

Notice for reschedule rec’d 07.15.2014

Reschedule Oath Ceremony on 07.22.2014

Got my certificate and get ready to apply for my passport on Thursday~

Congrats! I just had a quick question, after the oath, do you get a certificate stating citizenship right away (at the oath) or do you have to wait for it to be mailed? If the latter, how long did it take between the oath and certificate?

Congratulations Io_!

Whitel, I also received a yellow letter. Mine told me to bring my Driver's licence, marriage certificate (sent them the original already in my application), my passport, and my husband's proof of citizenship (birth certificate/citizenship card).

Come to think about it, in my application I sent them copies of every single document they requested me to bring. Oh well!

Interesting, it looks like the yellow letters differ depending on the application. Ours is asking my husband to bring passports and state-issued IDs (current and expired). We already included copies of his current passport, and the application never asked for a state ID copy.