My wife passed the interview today 4/12/06. Oath date: 5/10/06
So the complete time line for her is:
PD 01/09/2006 (mailed on 1/6/06 fedex)
FP 02/10/2006 (Recevied Jan 19/06)
Interview 04/12/2006 (received 2/23/06) Interview passed!
Oath ceremony 05/10/2006
Hi all,
My wife's N-400 application was based on marriage to a US citizen the complete story was as follows:
- I became a citizen on August 2002 (after 10 years as resident)
- We got married on 09/10/02
- We submitted the I-485 on 9/12/02
- She obtained the "2 year green card" on 04/09/03
- we submitted an I-751 on 01/09/05 (90 days before the two years)
- the I-751 was approved in May 2005 but the notice letter got lost!
- We secured a copy of the approval notice and went to the Boston Office to request the new card on November 06 2005.
- They gave her a stamp on her passport (IR6) which means the conditions on her residence based on marrying a citizen are now removed that was good for one year (As it turns out, the actual green card got lost several times! And just yesterday, we got it in the mail just in time for the interview! This was not that important as we had been told at Info Pass that the pasport stamp was enough for the Oath ceremony but receiving the plastic green card made my wife feel much better).
So back to the N-400 timeline again,
PD 01/09/2006 (mailed on 1/6/06 fedex) (note that 09/01 is 90 days before three years as a resident. SO we cut it as close to the law as we could!)
FP 02/10/2006 (Recevied Jan 19/06)
Interview 04/12/2006 (received 2/23/06) Passed details below.
Otah May 10, 2006.
What follows is a description of what went on in my wife's interview based on what she told me, along with some "free advice/pointers" that you should take at your own risk:
1) Do not waste any time studying other than the 100 questions, and the written English collection of simple sentences at the USCIS website. I can bet life that they do not ask questions outside these ones!
My wife was asked 5 of the 100 questions:
Who is the current president of the US; Who elects congress; What is the White House; What is the constitution; What are the duties of the supreme court. Then, the officer made her read a simple sentence from the everyday written sentences, and she had to write "She is happy with her house".
Despite my telling her that she would be fine, that they are not out to "get people", My wife was TERRIFIED about taking the interview. She has been in the US close to 6 years but she has never worked and never took a formal English class. She is a lazy but smart llady who did her learning of the language the old fashion American way (watching lots of TV with close captioning - English channels only!); as well as the the new Amerikan way: surfing the web long hours always trying to avoid sites in spanish.
She never worked and had very little contact with natives except friends who came home for dinner. However, she was never afraid of speaking! Her speech is not perfect, but compares well to that of friend who have been here longer. My op[inion is that as long as you understand most of what people tell you and you can make yourself be understood, even if making mistakes in your speach; then, if you religiously study the 100 question and the written sentenses you will pass the English and History requirement. They are not out to get people.
If you pass this portion of the interview, then you should be all set to go home as a citizen as most of the problems I have seen in this website have to do with a "yes" answer to a "no" question (for example, having a criminal record). There are ways in which your application may be delayed but since you have already read about those in this thread I will not elaborate.
2) Be very familiar with your application, read it several times and pracitice fake interviews with friends (These will be a lot harder than the actual interview.)
3) make sure you have the originals of all the documents requested in the interview letter and be ready to show them to the officer as well as offer him copies. For example, when the officer asked for her Green Card and passport, my wife offered: the new and old passport, the green card, the SS# and the Driver's License in a moments notice, as she had these ready for the first step of the interview. The officer was well impressed and said he only needed the GC and the current passport. Later in the interview she also had a chance to show our marriage license but the officer did not want to see the proof of my divorces nor the most recent tax return.
4) Have a copy of the application with you but do not open it if you don't really need to. (My wife never needed to open hers). In terms of questions about the application itself, she was asked her date of birth, she was also asked my name and her daughter's name (she has a dauther in Argentina) She then took the opportuinty to tell the officer a few things about myself and her daughter. This was a good show of her language skills in an area she can control and helped in "breaking the ice". He then asked her for any trips after the N-400 application was completed (She had three trips!) and she then gave him a neatly typed piece of paper that followed the format in the application. The idea here is to save the officer time. Type the stuff for him. Otherwise, he will have to do the work, and no one likes to do extra work they can avoid (most poeple bring the extra trips on paper).
He then asked her a few of the "No" questions and my wife answerd "no' to all of them, and a few of the yes questions.
He then told her she had become a citizen and made her sign the application and write her name in the fornt border of the photos.
In our way into the interview room, we noticed the Oath date being passed out was May 10; still, once she knew she had passed, my wife asked the officer if she could get an Oath date in May as we were traveling to Europe in June to attend a wedding.
5) Dress well (as if you are going to a job interview) Specially if you are male as most officers are male. If you are a lady with a nice figure you may be able to get away with wearing a pair of jeans but my recommendation is to dress formaly.
6) Try to sleep well the night before (take a sleeping pill if necessary). Don't do any studying the day of the interview. Just try to relax, just visualize the officer as a nice, friednly person who wants to help you get the US citizenship, not fail you.
Try to be in a positive mood/have a positive attitude (if you are religious, like my wife, do a bit of praying). In the interview, try to look at the officer in the eyes and show that you view him/her as a person/friend and not some kind of a cop. DO NOT SPEND THE WHOLE INTERVIEW LOOKING DOWN AT YOUR FOLDER/BROWSING YOUR FOLDER. This will do you no good.
Good luck to you all and God bless!