I need help w/ my N-600

T

taivng

New Member
I already filed my N-600 and got the approval letter. The thing is that I don't know what the next step is. They say to go to the local BCIS office in Baltimore but I don't know if there's an exact date to come. Also, I don't know if I should bring my mom with me. That's office is far from my home and I don't want to take a day off from school and my mom from work for nothing.
The letter says that: "The Certificate of Citizenship has been sent to your local INS office. You should go to the local BCIS office in Baltimore, with this notice and at least one piece of photo identification, so that an Oath of Citizenship may be administered."
Does this mean that I can come there any time since there's no date on the letter?

Any reply would be helpful :)
I just want to get this done quick and don't want be past due date (if there's any).
I called the Customer Service number but it just gave my general information and I couldn't get to speak with a representative.

Thank you
 
I'd schedule an Infopass appointment. If your office his administrative oaths, I assume they could do it same day. If they only do judicial oaths, you can ask to have it scheduled at the Infopass appointment.

If it's already been approved, I don't see why you need to bring your mom and your letter doesn't state to do so.
 
sh1996 said:
I'd schedule an Infopass appointment. If your office his administrative oaths, I assume they could do it same day. If they only do judicial oaths, you can ask to have it scheduled at the Infopass appointment.

If it's already been approved, I don't see why you need to bring your mom and your letter doesn't state to do so.
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I disagree with the advice. Just go there with the letter and the ID and collect your certificate. Why would you like to do an Infopass which will make you waste even more time? I am not sure how much you can wait, but if you are in school and going to be out of school in about a month I don't see any harm on waiting until you are out of school to go collect the certificate of citizenship.
 
Huracan said:
I disagree with the advice. Just go there with the letter and the ID and collect your certificate. Why would you like to do an Infopass which will make you waste even more time? I am not sure how much you can wait, but if you are in school and going to be out of school in about a month I don't see any harm on waiting until you are out of school to go collect the certificate of citizenship.
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It's not just a matter of picking up certificate, but also administering the oath according to the notice. If it requires USCIS to actually do something, seems like it would be better to have an appointment to talk to an IO than wander around a federal building asking random people...though I wasn't looking specifically, I don't remember a "pick up naturalization certificate" window in my DO. Also, don't know about Baltimore, but Infopass appointments in NY can be made in under a week, two at most.
 
Thank you all for the replies.

I'll look up Infopass and see if they have anything relate to my case. Otherwise, I'll just come down and pick it up this Friday. I was just afraid if there's any deadline on the letter, but since I don't see any...

Best of luck to all of you :)
 
Also ask to speak with a supervisor when you're at the DO to let them know that the instructions aren't very clear if they try to tell you that you have to come back another day for oath.
 
sh1996 said:
It's not just a matter of picking up certificate, but also administering the oath according to the notice. If it requires USCIS to actually do something, seems like it would be better to have an appointment to talk to an IO than wander around a federal building asking random people...though I wasn't looking specifically, I don't remember a "pick up naturalization certificate" window in my DO. Also, don't know about Baltimore, but Infopass appointments in NY can be made in under a week, two at most.
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sh1996. The point here is that the poster is not going to pick up a naturalization certificate, but a certificate of citizenship. I don't think they get scores of people going every day to pick up these certificates and that's possibly why they don't care about scheduling a specific day for you to go. The oath is a formality and the whole interview oath is probably just going to last a few minutes. I was suggesting that Infopass is a waste of time because Infopass requires going physically to the USCIS office and the poster seemed opposed to the idea of missing school hours. Anyway, this is a different process than N-400, in a way, much simpler as it doesn't involve finger prints, or other parts of N-400. N-600 is just a proof of citizenship for a person who is already a citizen so there is no need to judge English skills or anything like it. It seems to me that the poster just needs to show up with the letter and they'll tell him which window to go and someone will come and take him, verify identity and do the oath and give the certificate.
 
Huracan said:
I was suggesting that Infopass is a waste of time because Infopass requires going physically to the USCIS office and the poster seemed opposed to the idea of missing school hours. [...] It seems to me that the poster just needs to show up with the letter and they'll tell him which window to go and someone will come and take him, verify identity and do the oath and give the certificate.
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Still confused. He has to go in physically and talk to someone to pick up the certificate and have oath done whether or not he has an Infopass appointment.... (See your own two statements above.)

I'm not saying OP needs an Infopass, just that given his concerns about spending too much time in Baltimore, it might be better to show up with an appointment. (As you state yourself, this certificate pick up is probably not a regular occurence so presumably there's no assigned window.) Don't know what your experiences have been with Infopass, but the one time I did it, it was nice to have an appointed time and the wait was like 20 minutes (way better than a doctor's office;)).
 
Sure, original poster might do that, go ahead and schedule an Infopass. I just still think it might be wasted time for everyone, and the people really needing an Infopass ;) . I would guess the letter he/she got is good enough to get into the USCIS office. To make an analogy is like making an Infopass when you get an interview letter for a N-400. I am also fairly sure that the people handling Infopass and the N-600 "oath" are different people, so having the Infopass appointment doesn't guarantee more (in my view) that someone will handle the N-600 paperwork. Definitely the original poster can go ahead and do what he/she deems the best course of action, is just that in this case I don't see much value on the Infopass, as there is no problem with the application, just a doubt about which date to show up. My take is that any day is good.

taivng, please if you go tomorrow to pick up the certificate come back to let us know your experience. We actually don't have a lot of information about N-600 and the board will benefit from your experience.
 
Hello and sorry you all,

Thanks Huracan for reminding me to share my experience.

It turned out that I didn't need to make appointment or anything. We went to the office and show them our letter. Waited about half an hour for them to process. Then we went in there and took an oath. It was pretty quick.

Again, thank you all for helping me answering this question and sorry for didn't reply you guys quick enough. I was so busy with school the past week.
Hope you guys understand ^_^.

Tai
 
Ok, so here a summary for N-600.

After my mom got her citizenship. She sent the N-600 for me and my brother along with the checks.
We sent it in November (I think), and received their approval this month. So about 6 months sounds right.
We came to the office without any appointment. We went to the place where they usually do the interview. Showed our letter, and waited.
We took the oath, signed a few things and received our certificates.
p.s. They will ask to PRINT our your name on the certificate at home. I think they will emphasize you on that, but just printing your name on the certificate is no big deal.

Hope that helps some people ^_^

Tai
 
I am curious as to why an N-600 applicant is even required to take an oath. Clearly, someone is playing fast and loose with the law.
 
Congratulations Tai! :) Thanks for the update. Good luck with school. I guess finals are coming up.

To answer CRS. Yes, an oath shouldn't been required, as one is already a citizen, but that's their procedure.
 
The day i got my citizenship (May 15th) I went to my local USCIS office and submitted my son's N-600 - right there with them. The IO said this file will not go to NBC and will be processed right in local DO. They said it may take about 6 weeks.
 
James_Chak,

Cool. I'm surprised they took the application from you. They were nice. Other than that, yes, N-600 are usually mailed to local office and processed by local office. Six weeks sounds excellent. I hope they do it in that time, but perhaps they meant six months which is a more typical timeline. Please let us know when you get news about this application.
 
Huracan said:
James_Chak,

<snip>They were nice. <snip>.... <snip> Six weeks sounds excellent. I hope they do it in that time, but perhaps they meant six months which is a more typical timeline. <snip>
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They were ofcourse very nice. at 11:30 AM on that day I asked gave my applicatio. IO verified all contents and corrected some, and said if the kid is over 14, kid has to sign application and said to get a money order or certified check (and not a personal check). I told them I will come back in 3 hours - so they even entered my incomplete application into the systme so that my son's greencard application reachs local DO soon.

So I went home and waited for my son to come from school and reached USCIS again at 3:00PM with my son's signature and the money order. They even helped me with questions on my son's passport application and documents needed.

I then told them that i would be out of country in mid July to Sept - and hope that my son wouldn't be asked to come during that time to collect his certificate. They said "it would be way sooner than that:) - and may take to 4 to 6 weeks.
 
Cool. That's pretty good service. Most local offices don't accept filing directly with them, and only accept mailed applications. At least that's what I thought, although I don't have any direct knowledge of this. Good luck, and I hope the certificate gets issued that quickly. Thanks for your detailed explanation. I had also heard about the money order. In my case I sent the application by mail with a personal check and it was still ok, but I had read about some people being asked to submit money orders. Might change from local office to local office.
 
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