PedroDaGr8

Yep, most of us use both to try to estimate where USCIS is at. Good luck to everyone with interviews coming up!

This is exactly how it was with only one change. There are two tablets (or in the case of my wife two tablets and a monitor because the screen on one was having issues). One tablet is used for video conferencing and the other is used for the reading/writing portion.

Correct, she wasn't in an office. She said: "In a cubicle, so I can hear others talking too, very distracting" She said there were no windows in the cubicle but there were about 10 cubes in the room and the headphones did not block the noise very well. She said she could easily hear everyone else if she wanted to.

I think this is very much correct. Seattle was one of the pilot sites for testing out this technology and it seems is one of the pilot sites for rolling it out as well. I think this technology will be USCIS achieves their 6 mo goals across all sites. It has definitely allowed Seattle to see a dramatically higher number of interviews than in the past (it wouldn't surprise me if they are naturalizing over 100 people per day right now).

Just want to say thanks for your guide! My wife got her citizenship yesterday afternoon and we travel internationally at the end of this month. She will need a visa, so she falls under then 28 days criteria. She called yesterday evening after we got home and was able to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning at the Seattle Passport Agency. For others in this scenario, while the phone tree states "travel within 14 days", if you qualify via the 28 day criteria, then this is the option you choose. Also, I want to reiterate about staying on the line when it says that wait times are >60 min. When she called, it stated wait times were >60 min but then IMMEDIATELY after saying that connected us to an agent, we were quite surprised. She did have to specifically mention to the agent that she fell under the visa-related 28 day criteria, when she told him the travel date was >14 days away. Once she mentioned that, the agent immediately understood the situation and found her the aforementioned date.

They had an assistant who was assigned to handle documents for all of the non-local interviews. The assistant took the document, scanned it, and sent it to the interviewing officer. As there was only one assistant, it took time to do this task. Time which the interviewing officer would fill by asking more questions! I think this was a big reason for how grueling it was. When she was done it was this same assistant who directed her to the oath ceremony. I was not allowed to enter the building, so I couldn't attend her oath ceremony.

She did not, her I-751 was approved (without interview) right before she applied for the N400

Yep she did!

She's now a US Citizen! The interview was gruelling for her. The Interview appointment was for 12:45. We arrived at 12:10 and she went in at 12:20 without issue. She was immediately directed to have her biometrics done (they were waived previously). From there she went to the waiting room and was seen right around her interview time. The interviewing officer was remote, she communicated with him via a tablet and headphones. She said the guy was quite gruff and never smiled once (or even said she got an answer correct) but never was out of line. They started with the Civics Questions: 1. We elect a President for how many years? 2. Name one state that borders Canada. 3. Who was the first President? 4. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy? 5. Who is the governor of your state? 6. What movement tried to end racial discrimination? This was followed by the Reading: She forgets but it was something to do with George Washington. And Writing: George Washington was the first president. Then he started confirming the N400 information. He didn't ask every single item in the N400 but asked a good chunk both initially and while waiting for submitted documents to be scanned in (which took a bunch of time because they were so busy). After that, he asked for a joint bank account statement (we didn't bring it), so she suggested our most recent tax return which he accepted. He also asked for a copy of our lease, which we provided. From there he asked her a bunch of questions about our marriage (where did we get married, what's her job, what's my job, etc.) Interestingly, he never asked her for my (the US Citizen spouse) birth certificate or divorce papers or for our marriage certificate. At the end of the interview, while they were waiting for some documents to be scanned in by the staff, he asked "Do you see the printer?" To which she responded yes, thinking he wanted her to scan something in because it was taking SO long. He said that he is going to send something to her. It was her approval. When she picked it up, he said "Congratulations, you passed." He then stated that in Washington, you will have a same day ceremony and the assistant will be in shortly to provide you with further instructions, before immediately hanging up. All in all the interview took around 45min-1 hour. The assistant came in immediately after he hung up and directed her to the auditorium. They waited until a certain number of people were present and performed the ceremony at around 1:55. As she left, she saw they were already queueing up the next batch of approvals.

That so unfortunate about your file!😟 My wife is in her interview right now. I'll update in a bit when I know more. It has been over an hour, so I'm hopeful.

Thanks, I'll let you know how my wife does and all the details!

I think your chances are pretty good because your biometrics should still be valid. Yes, they will take your green card at oath. As for passport applications, it seems like most places are running around 1 month for expedited. For my wife, we have a trip scheduled at the end of this month, so our only option (if she gets a same day oath) will be to try and get an emergency passport.

My wife received her notice online on 01JUL2022 but we did not receive the paper notice until 14JUL2022.

That seems like a better plan than rescheduling your interview. In general, rescheduling your interview should be your last resort. I would reschedule a trip way before I would reschedule an interview. Even if the oath ceremony occurs during your trip, it can be rescheduled once without too much issue.

From my understanding, N400's are mostly handled by your local field office, not the NBC

While it sounds good in theory, it is almost universally agreed that applicants should NOT share their entire receipt number (which you call case ID) except with people close to them, their attorney, etc. USCIS considers the receipt number personally identifying information. When linked to an account name, or worse, actual name, it can increase the risk of identity theft or other issues. This is why the moderators almost always instruct people to remove their case number from posts. As such, requesting that users fill in this information in an off-site spreadsheet is likely to run afoul of the moderators of this site.

That's awesome that the officer was that accommodating, definitely not the norm! Also congrats!

Thanks for the timeline and congrats!

Forgot to post the link to the historical data tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YeRoAOAtGsInGRjNgkNw1RrWbAtEDIysrs_lNcTRT7M/edit?usp=sharing

Wow, that is going really fast! The FY2022Q2 data just came out. Unfortunately, it only covers through the end of March of this year so it doesn't show these major strides. That being said, it does show a slight drop in the number of pending cases (by only 163). I have no idea what decides case timelines. The only thing I can think of is different officers working at different paces.

Seattle and I-751 is not pending. Yeah, they sometimes like to pair things together to save time for the officers. Interview or Oath? Those are different things.

We just received our interview notice on July 1st. Timeline are mostly FO dependent, what is your FO?

Congrats! It sure does seem like they are improving! Also, do you mind adding your data (application date, interview notice date, interview date, etc.) to this tracking spreadsheet? The more datapoints we have, the better the estimates for new applicants. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FcItCasVItCDsUNEbDu15IRQ-AbDMRJWsiljwtz5WRI/edit#gid=1497976778

There is a passport subsection to the Citizenship sub-forum. You will likely have better results there.

Kind of. The definition of national interest is very loose. For example, you can expedite for business reasons if the business benefits the USA, there is a thread about it in this forum. Basically, if the money from the business comes back to the USA and this business is moving the US Citizen to a temporary international position, then that is sufficient to expedite for the LPR spouse. Also, congrats to your friend! This out-of-order processing is pretty rare but happens from time-to-time. It seems like one or two cases a year get processed out-of-order. To be honest, nobody knows for certain why this happens but it seems to be more common right after a bunch of new agents get hired (like right now). My guess is a new agent grabbed a case from the wrong end of their workload.