As this forum has been invaluable in helping me, I thought I would write a few words regarding my experience, specifically about how things worked for me given that I had to change my residence while my application was being processed. Hopefully, this will be helpful to others who have to deal with similar situations during their application process.
** I (and my wife) sent in our N400 applications while resident in Raleigh NC. We applied in the last week of July 2007, just before the fees changed upwards.
** We received our fingerprinting notices for appointments in the last week of December but could not go since we were holidaying in our home country.
** We did a walk-in to the Charlotte District Office for fingerprinting in the second week of January 2008 and were successfull fingerprinted. The District Office folks are quite understanding about missed appointments as long as it's not too far back. Also, they're looking for a good reason. Ours, that we were out of the country, was sufficient (We took our flight boarding cards as proof of our travel but did not need to show it). Take-away here: We were thinking about asking for a reschedule of the fingerprinting appointment especially since many folks recommended doing so. However, it seems that Walking-in for fingerprinting was quite acceptable in our case.
** In May 2008, we moved to Jacksonville FL. We agonized about the decision to change our address with the USCIS and our N400s. And we received much good advice from the folks on this forum. Most everyone recommended not changing the address (perhaps keeping our home until the interview letter came through), or if needed do a local address change (within the Raleigh area so that there's no change of district). Given the cost of maintaining two homes and the advice of our company's immigration attorney, we decided to buck the trend and do an official address change. This was completed in May 2008. We did the address change electronically on the USCIS website. We also called the USCIS customer service and confirmed that the address was changed as well. Takeaway here: Check and double check with the USCIS to make sure the address change took effect, especially for the N400 application. We found that only after three calls and updates with customer service did the address change on our N400 applications.
** In June 2008, we received interview letters to do our interviews in the newly opened Durham District Office! Doh!! Double Doh!! We were kicking ourselves about the address change at that point.
** We spoke to a really friendly and helpful Immigration Officer about our situation at this point. He told us to send the Durham office a letter saying that we couldn't attend the interview because we'd changed our address and to formally request the Durham office to send our files to the Jacksonville office. A huge tip that he gave us was to go to the Jacksonville District Office after two weeks to double check if the file had been transferred.
** Two weeks later, we went to the Jacksonville District Office to check if our files had arrived. They had not. So the Jacksonville District Office said that they would request the files from Durham. They said that this typically kicked the transfer into motion a lot faster.
** A week and a half later, we received letters and emails from the Jacksonville District Office confirming that they had received our files. Take-away here: The destination District Office's request transfers the file very quickly!!
** In September 2008, we received interview letters from the Jacksonville District Office for October interviews. Our interviews were quite uneventful. We were armed with tax returns, plane tickets to show proof of length of trips and letters from work about address changes, work related travel etc. They didn't ask us for anything. They simply went through the original application form and corrected all the information as necessary. For example, we had a child since applying and our travel dates since applying...They did ask for better photos and luckily we were anal enough to have extra photos as well.
** Two weeks later, we received oath letters for the oath in November. And we just successfully completed that too.
Overall, the biggest take-away I have from this experience is that the District Office and the folks in it play a large role in how easy/difficult this entire process is. We were lucky that the Jacksonville employees were friendly, helpful and extremely efficient.
** I (and my wife) sent in our N400 applications while resident in Raleigh NC. We applied in the last week of July 2007, just before the fees changed upwards.
** We received our fingerprinting notices for appointments in the last week of December but could not go since we were holidaying in our home country.
** We did a walk-in to the Charlotte District Office for fingerprinting in the second week of January 2008 and were successfull fingerprinted. The District Office folks are quite understanding about missed appointments as long as it's not too far back. Also, they're looking for a good reason. Ours, that we were out of the country, was sufficient (We took our flight boarding cards as proof of our travel but did not need to show it). Take-away here: We were thinking about asking for a reschedule of the fingerprinting appointment especially since many folks recommended doing so. However, it seems that Walking-in for fingerprinting was quite acceptable in our case.
** In May 2008, we moved to Jacksonville FL. We agonized about the decision to change our address with the USCIS and our N400s. And we received much good advice from the folks on this forum. Most everyone recommended not changing the address (perhaps keeping our home until the interview letter came through), or if needed do a local address change (within the Raleigh area so that there's no change of district). Given the cost of maintaining two homes and the advice of our company's immigration attorney, we decided to buck the trend and do an official address change. This was completed in May 2008. We did the address change electronically on the USCIS website. We also called the USCIS customer service and confirmed that the address was changed as well. Takeaway here: Check and double check with the USCIS to make sure the address change took effect, especially for the N400 application. We found that only after three calls and updates with customer service did the address change on our N400 applications.
** In June 2008, we received interview letters to do our interviews in the newly opened Durham District Office! Doh!! Double Doh!! We were kicking ourselves about the address change at that point.
** We spoke to a really friendly and helpful Immigration Officer about our situation at this point. He told us to send the Durham office a letter saying that we couldn't attend the interview because we'd changed our address and to formally request the Durham office to send our files to the Jacksonville office. A huge tip that he gave us was to go to the Jacksonville District Office after two weeks to double check if the file had been transferred.
** Two weeks later, we went to the Jacksonville District Office to check if our files had arrived. They had not. So the Jacksonville District Office said that they would request the files from Durham. They said that this typically kicked the transfer into motion a lot faster.
** A week and a half later, we received letters and emails from the Jacksonville District Office confirming that they had received our files. Take-away here: The destination District Office's request transfers the file very quickly!!
** In September 2008, we received interview letters from the Jacksonville District Office for October interviews. Our interviews were quite uneventful. We were armed with tax returns, plane tickets to show proof of length of trips and letters from work about address changes, work related travel etc. They didn't ask us for anything. They simply went through the original application form and corrected all the information as necessary. For example, we had a child since applying and our travel dates since applying...They did ask for better photos and luckily we were anal enough to have extra photos as well.
** Two weeks later, we received oath letters for the oath in November. And we just successfully completed that too.
Overall, the biggest take-away I have from this experience is that the District Office and the folks in it play a large role in how easy/difficult this entire process is. We were lucky that the Jacksonville employees were friendly, helpful and extremely efficient.
