Harassment and abusive behavior during the citizenship interview

1. IO telling her again to turn off her cell phone when she already told him that she did not have one?
See my first post

2. IO not answering her question when she asked him to repeat what he had said that she did not understand?
She should've repeated her request. This happens with people, they think about something and dont hear what other people are saying.

3. IO telling her to go home after the interview in the presence of her husband (and others in the waiting area)?
Maybe he thought she was waiting for him to tell her something like "here is an approval for you" or "you need to bring me some more docs" etc. By saying this he meant interview was finished.

Any more questions?




Now you are beginning to take liberties judging this woman and why she posted her experiences. Now assuming everything she said is true, what part of the following do you really see as a subjective interpretation and not rude or condescending in how they happened?

1. IO telling her again to turn off her cell phone when she already told him that she did not have one?
2. IO not answering her question when she asked him to repeat what he had said that she did not understand?
3. IO telling her to go home after the interview in the presence of her husband (and others in the waiting area)?

And as for Bobsmyth mis-paraphrasing what the OP stated, how does that reflect doubt on what OP stated originally and did not contradict at any point? Seriously people, when did we all become expert character psychologists and interpret things beyond what was stated?
 
1. IO telling her again to turn off her cell phone when she already told him that she did not have one?
See my first post
Your first post says nothing about this. Maybe you wrote it in invisible ink. The bottom line is that this is clear rude behavior on the IO's part.

2. IO not answering her question when she asked him to repeat what he had said that she did not understand?
She should've repeated her request. This happens with people, they think about something and dont hear what other people are saying.
Not when the guy told her good bye as a response to her question asking for a clarification and if you were in a similar antagonistic situation, I'd love to see you asking the guy to yet again repeat his earlier statement. Paper tiger perhaps?

3. IO telling her to go home after the interview in the presence of her husband (and others in the waiting area)?
Maybe he thought she was waiting for him to tell her something like "here is an approval for you" or "you need to bring me some more docs" etc. By saying this he meant interview was finished.
Why you are making wild interpretations of what this woman stated that the guy said to her? That was just rude of that IO under the circumstances and there's no need to try to justify his behavior. The only point you're making with that is that you do not take simple statements at face value and in a forum like this, that adds no value.

Any more questions?
Yes, is your Don Quixote imagination a congenital condition or did it develop over time?
 
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Just for a fun I ll reply to this since I am in a good mood. Usually i ignore simple minded people.
Rude behaviour and harassment/abuse are different things. This complaint will never stay in court, it will not even go past police or in this case past IO supervision department.
As for my wild interpretation - I am just giving your examples how the same facts can have different explanations, story behind it. And lady's story is just one of millions that could explain the same facts. There was no fact of abuse/harassment.

As for you Don Quixote question - i ll just ignore it.

This is my last post in this thread.

Your first post says nothing about this. Maybe you wrote it in invisible ink. The bottom line is that this is clear rude behavior on the IO's part.


Not when the guy told her good bye as a response to her question asking for a clarification and if you were in a similar antagonistic situation, I'd love to see you asking the guy to yet again repeat his earlier statement. Paper tiger perhaps?


Why you are making wild interpretations of what this woman stated that the guy said to her? That was just rude of that IO under the circumstances and there's no need to try to justify his behavior. The only point you're making with that is that you do not take simple statements at face value and in a forum like this, that adds no value.


Yes, is your Don Quixote imagination a congenital condition or did it develop over time?
 
What is your basis to suggest that ex-cup and ex-military would do that ? Many current and former officers of both military and law enforcements who risks their lives to serve and protect this country, adhere the highest professional standards. Just because someone served military or law enforcement does not mean that he/she will be aggressive and show an usual behavior.
I'm sure there are many ex-military/ex-cop IOs that adhere to high professional standards, but that doesn't equate to friendly customer service. IOs from military and police background are very disciplined and process oriented due to their previous training; it's an understandable requirement to be direct, stern and disciplined as a cop or soldier. However, this type of discipline doesn't always make them the best candidates as IOs that are in contact with customers who pay their salary.
 
By the way compare your citation
"he feels sorry every time someone comes to the building "

with OPs one
"he told that he feels sorry everytime he comes to this building"

I already can see the difference :) Now I wonder what was the actually original sentence made by IO?.
Whatever the statement was, it was inappropriate given the context in which it was said.
As for OPs variant - there can be so many reasons he might've said it. Maybe building is in such bad shape and needs reairs or overcrowded with long lines of OPS. Or maybe he had some bad memories (he met his ex-wife in it and then she damped him and ran away with another WOman :) ). Or maybe he just doesnt like his shitty and low paid IO job. So many other different explanations that have nothing to do with OP..
True, but still an inappropriate connect given the context in which it was said.
As for condescending manner - this is sooo subjective.
The IO ordered OP to turn off cell eventhough she didn't have one on her. The IO told OP to go home from 50 feet away..inferring that he shouted to her across the room.
I wasn't there, so I can't say what happened, but from the OP's account this suggests to me that he had a condescending attitude.
I bet lady was a bit under the pressure and "no immediate approval" makes her blame IO.
....
Now that sounds like a subjective interpretation. ;)
 
I'm sure there are many ex-military/ex-cop IOs that adhere to high professional standards, but that doesn't equate to friendly customer service. IOs from military and police background are very disciplined and process oriented due to their previous training; it's an understandable requirement to be direct, stern and disciplined as a cop or soldier. However, this type of discipline doesn't always make them the best candidates as IOs that are in contact with customers who pay their salary.

Discipline and courtesy are completely orthogonal to each other.
 
Just for a fun I ll reply to this since I am in a good mood. Usually i ignore simple minded people.
A clear case of the pot calling the kettle black :) (I'm in a good mood too)

Rude behaviour and harassment/abuse are different things. This complaint will never stay in court, it will not even go past police or in this case past IO supervision department.
The point of this poor lady's post was that she was upset at how unprofessionally she was treated and asked for advice in redressing this through an official complaint. It doesn't matter what you want to label the treatment because the IO was a condescending jerk from what I read. As Bobsmyth said, if you don't even try to complain about things like this, nothing will change. You seem to have a fondness of making all-knowing sweeping statements about how things work.

As for my wild interpretation - I am just giving your examples how the same facts can have different explanations, story behind it. And lady's story is just one of millions that could explain the same facts. There was no fact of abuse/harassment.
So what if there are a million possible explanations, the end result is the same ... the guy was acting like a jerk and for a Govt official in that capacity, that is unacceptable.

This is my last post in this thread.
Now that's doing this thread a real service.
 
Now you are beginning to take liberties judging this woman and why she posted her experiences. Now assuming everything she said is true, what part of the following do you really see as a subjective interpretation and not rude or condescending in how they happened?

1. IO telling her again to turn off her cell phone when she already told him that she did not have one?
2. IO not answering her question when she asked him to repeat what he had said that she did not understand?
3. IO telling her to go home after the interview in the presence of her husband (and others in the waiting area)?

And as for Bobsmyth mis-paraphrasing what the OP stated, how does that reflect doubt on what OP stated originally and did not contradict at any point? Seriously people, when did we all become expert character psychologists and interpret things beyond what was stated?

I guess we will never know a lot of things since the OP will not return, and maybe she is just watching horrified that this forum is worse than her interview. However, she needs to understand that the intent of the IO and this forum might have been same. Anyway, I will take a shot at these 3 questions ... not from knowing what happened, but something which could be realistic.

1. IO telling her again to turn off her cell phone when she already told him that she did not have one?

... Maybe the OP has a communication problem. Her spoken english may not be as good as her written english. So she responds to the IO ... but the IO does not understand and repeats. I have seen so many people raise their voice (a bit) and repeat the instructions when their first instruction is not understood ... or responded properly.

2. IO not answering her question when she asked him to repeat what he had said that she did not understand?

Maybe the IO said "good day" and then was forced to repeat it. I have had that more than once ... but the person on the other side just sheepishly said "I was just saying good bye".

3. IO telling her to go home after the interview in the presence of her husband (and others in the waiting area)?

Again, assuming a pattern of mis-communication or language problems, IO wanted to make sure his instructions reached her. And he was loud ... the reason you can see from the other example. The 50 feet story ... I do not buy that. 20 feet - maybe ... YOU. CAN. GO. HOME. NOW.

Of course, I could be in an alternate reality, but a possible reality it is.
 
Don't mind the IO or take it personally. Some IOs have no customer service skills whatsoever and play mind games to intimidate the applicant. He was probably ex-military or ex-cop..they are notorious for bad customer service.
By all means, file a complaint with the USCIS and with the DO's supervisor. Did you get the IO's full name? It should be on interview results letter.

Interesting ... I am sure we have had quite a few people complaining about mind games. How does this work? Does the IO decide at the spur of the moment to play these games, or does the IO look at the file and prepares himself before the interview? And what if having set himself to start a mind-game, it turns out his profiling of the application was wrong, and some poor moose got stuck in the mind game. The IO is not going to apologize ... he has to continue the charade.

Now is there a need for the IO to play mind games at all ... I guess it depends from case to case, and in some cases it is really necessary since you are granting the person a right which can not be easily taken away. Now can this game be perfect ... I think NOT. For every 10 people you trap correctly, you play this game with 1 innocent. And for every 100 cases you pass without doing a 30 minute interview, you let someone with a criminal record become citizen. Yes, while this could be an arrogant or racist IO, it could just be life.

Why am I not sympathetic to the OP? I am, However, I feel I need to present an alternate perspective given that there are many people who have anyway given her good recommendations. If everyone was quiet, I might have answered differently.

Last post on this topic ... YES, until the OP returns.
 
interesting to see that other's are giving their views..and..long long discussion..............while OP has not replied a word since he/she posted this thread......................... so what is it that you have decided ........
 
interesting to see that other's are giving their views..and..long long discussion..............while OP has not replied a word since he/she posted this thread......................... so what is it that you have decided ........

My thoughts exactly. OP is probably out partying while everyone here is getting bent out of shape.
This seems to be the thread du jour that has a bunch of people worked up. (let me toss in a few incendiaries as well)
 
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Yesterday I had citizenship interview in California based on 5 years of GC.
(I got green card thru my husband who got his GC thru employment.)
The first thing he told me was to turn the cell phone off.
Ireplied saying I do not have cell phone with me.
He raised the voice and again he told me to turn cell phone off.
The Interviewing Officer was very abusive.
In the interview, he did not ask much on English or Geography.
All he asked was - What is the capital of US?
During the interview, he told that he feels sorry everytime he comes to this building
in a very condescending manner. He raised his voice for no need.
He did not ask for any documents.
He ticked the box - which says USCIS will send us notification and also he ticked the pass on English / Geography.
While handing over, he said something.
I did not understand what he told and requested him to say that again.
He just told good bye angrily.

Once the interview was over, I was almost in tears and came back to the waiting room
where my husband was waiting. We were talking about the interview. He came out for next candidate and
told me to go home from 50 feet distance. All this happened in 3 - 4 minutes after the interview.

---------------------

I felt very bad and upset. I was never treated like this before in this country.
I would not have minded at all if he had asked me more on Geography/English or for
more documents and showed if I was wrong in something - either poor in Geography/English
or lacking some documents. All he did during the interview was practical scolding.
He behaved as if I had old enmity with him.
I never expected this kind of treatment from an Interviewing Officer in USCIS building.

I appreciate your time reading all the above.
Can you please suggest me what I can do to redress this?
Have anyone of you had similar experiences and if so how you dealt them.
Should I file a complaint to USCIS or do something through an attorney?
Thanks much in advance for your time and suggestions.

Although people will say immigration law is the same everywhere you go in the US, but we know that that is NOT true. With different asshocers, your case will turn out totally different despite there are all these so-called imigration laws. People with authority are always abusive no matter how great they think they are. The USA is definitely NOT a democratic society, in fact, it is very totalitarian rule.

Voting does NOT equal to democracy,otherwise Bush Jr would not had won the election back in 2000, popular vote was not taken in consideration, but his brother in Florida helped him to be the president.
Although new immigrants are going through social and legal injustice eveyday, they called it is a democratic society just because you can (ONLY if you are citizen) put that piece of paper in a box.

What have caused this discrepancy between reality and fantacy--- the evil media. They have toxicated people all over the world about the deceptive image about the USA (Ugly&Stupid Assholes)
 
"Mind Games"

I don't think there's any problem with what people are calling 'Mind games'.

This is how it works...
If you stress a person out and then ask rapid fire questions, if a person has something to hide, they may slip up and reveal whatever they're trying to hide.
The IOs are just doing their jobs (granted, some are better at it than others).
 
Quotes by mahatma gandhi on customer service

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so

As far as I see things the IO is also a customer service personal, may be not like the sales agent who call you when ur number is not in the do not call list.

then again gandhi didnt get america their independence nor is he america.
 
Quotes by mahatma gandhi on customer service

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so

As far as I see things the IO is also a customer service personal, may be not like the sales agent who call you when ur number is not in the do not call list.

then again gandhi didnt get america their independence nor is he america.

The above refers to Business. USCIS is Government. Business and government are very (very) different.
We aren't 'customers' of the government, we are minions who are forced to pay more and more taxes to feed the Beast (government).
The Beast doesn't care about things like 'Customer Service'.
 
well when a fee is charged for the service, 675 is quite a handsome amount to take care of the expenditure. so technically we are customers. and we should expect to be treated in a decent manner with courtesy. well they may not be on you knees, but still we are the customers, its not like the sales reps but , customer care is an art and the department should make sure that people with good personal skills should be hired being it one of the merits. feeding the ever hungry beast is just some utopia, gone are those days .
 
Yes, this thread has quite comically gone off on a few tangents and now is philosophical. I am willing to bet that if the OP had used perfect English to describe the exact same experience, there would be less analyzing on the part of people about whether she actually read the situation correctly. I suspect that everything described along with the implied negative language tone and body language of the IO made this woman feel upset. I get the suggested mind games possibility but why continue that charade after the interview was well over and done with and tell her to go home? There will always be unprofessional characters everywhere and for all you know, this guy could just be an adult bully who, being in a position of power, is picking on weak, easy targets for fun.
 
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Thanks a lot for your responses

I am very sorry for not replying so far. I was not in a mood to remember what all happened. So, could not respond till now.

First of all, many many thanks to all of you
"JPBoston, Bobsmyth, ganjik, GungaDin, nkm-oct23, Mufuruki2, toneto, DreamUSA, sanjoseaug20, dr_rks, Triple Citizen, TheRealCanadian, kruz_patz"
for responding to my posting.

Thanks especially JPBoston, Bobsmyth, ganjik, sanjoseaug20 and GungaDin for spending lot of time and effort in giving detailed responses.
I highly appreciate it. My apologies in case I missed some name.


Let me please add something from my side now.
I never faced any problems in communicating with people in this country.
And I was not in an apprehensive and oversessitive situation when I went for the interview.
I was pretty relaxed because there was nothing to worry since I have all possible documents and also prepared for the civics test pretty well.
It was the IO who practically shouted and made me feel bad.

My reply to one of ganjik's statements:

I am not sure how you concluded that I was under pressure and so I reacted that way. I am sorry to say that was not case and I was not under pressure because I believed that I had everything that is needed for the interview. The IO told in a shouting and frusrating voice that "he feels sorry everytime he comes to this building". I am at loss to understand that he would say something like this to me thinking about the building or meeting his ex-wife if he had met her in the building. I do not think he tells something like that to an interviewee whom he met first time and that too for a few minutes only. I think he was clearly implying that towards me and other people like me who were in
similar situation.

This happened in San Francisco office.

Also in reply to ganjik's question - " I am sorry. But I didnt exactly understand what the harassment or abuse was about? "
Did he shout on you?

My answer: Yes - he shouted.

Also can someone please reply to the question posted by dr_rks - "Are these interviews video recorded ? They do so in embassies." I also have the same doubt and forgot to pose this question before.

Someone is saying that my comment about the IO's condescending behavior is subjective.
Please note that it need not be the case.

Dealing with INS/USCIS is not easy quite a few times. Many of us are willing to put up with extreme delays, arbitrariness and mishandling of the cases and wait with enoromous patience. US citizenship interview is something where quite of us are willing to tolerate lot of rubbish as we are in vulnerable situation and it is not a fair game. We are at the losing end with limited defences in such situations.


At least I believe that way and I would not have posted in this forum if it was not clearly demeaning and abusive. I did not expect some kind of friendly customer service and in fact was ready for some hard questions. But what happened was beyond normal and sensible limit. We thought of asking for USCIS duty manager and complaining about the situation immediately come what may but left the building within 5 minutes after the interview thinking we should not act in haste in such situations.

You know the officer shouted from around 50 feet asking me to go home just after 2 minutes after my interview. Somebody commented in this forum saying that IO must have meant that I was sitting there expecting some more process. Please tell me if 2 minutes were too much time sitting there. My husband was there and I would at least talk to him for a minute after the interview about what happened and also need to check if I have all the documents properly with me and needs such as going to rest room.


Just for the latitude of thinking as one of you had given the IO all the benefit of doubt - when he told me to go home - how do you know he was not telling me to go to India.
Please note I did not make this allegation originally nor do I mean even now. But just want to mention that statements can be stretched and tweaked in any direction.

Also someone if the forum suggested that I was subjective. Please see the below scenario.

The first thing the IO told me was to turn the cell phone off.
I replied saying I do not have cell phone with me.
He raised the voice and again he told me to turn cell phone off.


In the above scenario, whose mind was in subjective frame.
I did not even carry cell phone into the building, forget turning it off.
We left in the car itself.
But the IO assumes that I have a cell phone which was on.
Who was subjective?

The following were ticked in the form N-652, Naturalization Interview Results, that was given to me.

* You passed the tests of English and U.S. history and government.
* USCIS will send you a written decision about your application.

Again many thanks to all of you and especially JPBoston and Bobsmyth for trying to understand my situation. Also thanks ganjik for different perspective.

Summing up, please suggest me what I should do?

What are the possible responses from USCIS in this kind of situation?

Thanks and best regards,

CA-person
 
CA-Person, Can we get some details on your case? Irrespective of the way the IO behaved, if we have some more details, perhaps someone can shed more light on what's going to happen next.

What we know are the following:
1. You and your husband got your GC 5 yrs ago.
2. You had troubles at your Citizenship interview.

Can we get some more information:
Has your husband applied for his citizenship? If so, How did his interview go?
Did you take many trips outside the US over the last 5 years?
Were you out of the US for more than 6 months in any 12 month period? (e.g. 3 months in india, 1 month US, 4 months India, 2 months US, 3 months India ,1 month US etc).

In 5yr Citizenship cases the marriage is only an issue if it appeared that the marriage was entered into only to get your green Card. However, as you're still married to the same person, that is not an issue.
 
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