Finally a U.S. citizen!!

V

Veggie3

Registered Users (C)
Last week I attended a naturalization interview, and less than an hour later I took the oath.

That concludes my immigration journey of well over a decade. My case had another wrinkle, since I was one of the "lucky winners" of DV-2012: back then (May 2011), about 22,000 applicants logged on and were told they won, but the results were canceled after 2 weeks, as there was a computer glitch that didn't fully randomize the draw. Four years later I self-petitioned myself in the National Interest Waiver and got the coveted GC.

The naturalization interview was very easy, and even though I brought a few folders of documents with me, the interviewer asked to see only my GC and DL. The fact that with a pandemic going on, USCIS furloughs, and an election year, my application was processed in about 5.5 months is basically a miracle!


Good luck everyone!!
 
Congrats! I had my citizenship interview yesterday as well in NYC and it went very well like a miracle! Everything was done in less than 40 mins.
I had so much documents with me and I was only asked for my passport and green card. My Oath is scheduled in 3 weeks.
I was hesitant to ask the officer if he could schedule my Oath sooner but I didn't ask. Just wondering if that could have been possible? Is there any way I can try to see if I can get a sooner date? I haven't seen my family for almost a year and I want to go and visit them in the holidays.

Thanks everyone for all the help and information shared on this forum. Special thanks to @SusieQQQ you have been of a great help to me and all members.
 
Thank you for the best wishes.

I must admit that I wanted a more formal oath ceremony, with all the bells and whistles. Considering what's going on right now, however, I'm grateful that I had the option to do a same-day oath.
 
To Aomelche - I'm in AZ. One way to try and assess whether you can have a same-day oath is to look at the oath schedule of the U.S. District Court in your area. In AZ, they noted that applicants who do not have a name change will be able to take the oath at a USCIS facility. If the latter, you have more chances for a same-day oath.
 
A lot more offices are doing same day oaths now that COVID has scuttled big ceremonies. (It is mostly the case anyway I think that those not doing name changes do them via USCIS, I don’t think that necessarily indicates whether they do same day or not.)
 
Susie - this is mostly state dependent. Prior to the pandemic, in some states/counties the U.S. District Court has the exclusive authority to administer the oath (that was the case in my county), and then there was no same-day oath, regardless of a name change or not.

COVID-19 changed everything, and growing backlogs necessitated flexibility. In my state, the U.S. District Court published a policy memo in Sept., which allowed USCIS to conduct oaths in cases where no name change (or other compelling reasons) was required.

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-j-chapter-6
 
Veggie3 said:
Susie - this is mostly state dependent. Prior to the pandemic, in some states/counties the U.S. District Court has the exclusive authority to administer the oath (that was the case in my county), and then there was no same-day oath, regardless of a name change or not.

COVID-19 changed everything, and growing backlogs necessitated flexibility. In my state, the U.S. District Court published a policy memo in Sept., which allowed USCIS to conduct oaths in cases where no name change (or other compelling reasons) was required.

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-j-chapter-6
Click to expand...
My point was simply that you cannot infer whether or not it is same day from looking at what is allowed for name changes. Perhaps I should have been clearer that when I said “most” it was not “all” because of differences between states. I also noted that many more are doing same day now. I don’t think it’s even backlogs so much as may as well do same day if possible because they are not scheduling big commemorative ceremonies like before.
 
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