LOng delays for Oath in Dallas..

J

jamesbond911

Registered Users (C)
I've been waiting since Mid-Jan,2003 after my INS Interview for citizenship in Dallas, TX. In between I did contact the INS through phone and they sent me a status letter saying "A decision cannot be made at this time and some officer is working on your case".
It has been almost 8 months since my Interview now and have been just waiting..
A couple of weeks ago I went to the local BCIS office and 1 officer was so rude to me that he just brushed me aside saying that it was tooo early to check for any status and there were people waiting to get the N-445 since August'2001!! He didnt even check my status on the Computer. What can anyone do in such a scenario??
1) Also, if you hire an Attorney does it help to accentuate your file and get status of your case faster?
2) Does it help in any way to write a letter to Senator/Congressman and how does one approach to do it?
Please advice me as any input will be more than welcomed..I saw some posts from people residing in the Dallas area, so it would be great if you could guide me..
Regards.
 
The Dallas office is seriously understaffed for the number of cases they are handling.

So, I don't think you have much choice but to wait, unless you have the money for attorney fees, to file a lawsuit.
 
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I found the Congressman for our zone and I am aggresively waiting to write to him. So what all information am I supposed to include when I'm writing a letter to him? and also which are the required documents which will helpful to the case to attach alongwith it?
Is the 'Notice of Action' the last letter which the INS gave me after the INS Interview?
Please help..
 
dallas local office

hey james bond: I am in the same boat as you are - infact a bit worse for i had my interview last dec 02. i made several trips to the INS office and all that they indicated is i have been scheduled for oath the past 4 months! Everything is clear from a check perspective but they said i am in the long pipeline.

When i went there i also met folks who had sent the appl in may 02 and some cases even earlier jan 02. But obviously these guys had some problems, address or name change, and incomplete doc. One common thread was the name of the officer for interview. All of us had the same guy!

I had written to a local senator but have recd absolutely no response. i called the office 5 times but they have not returned the call. They put me on hold and their behaviour is even worse than the INS. Hard to believe! I intend to write to the dallas morning news citing the behavior of the senator's office right after i get the oath letter.

I am thinking of looking through the legal route. Not sure if they can influence the local dudes to speed delivery of oath letter. I heard from one guy that he can help for 300 bucks, but i am not sure if he will do anything fruitful.

Let me know if you want to team up to hunt for a good lawyer.

itoo
 
itoo,

You may want to look at a Class Action Lawsuit, after you gather some people in your same situation.

Make sure you get a very good lawyer, not some inexperienced lawyer who wants to make a few bucks.

These Class Action Lawsuits have been successful in several cases to force BCIS to speed up certain cases.

Also, make sure you take down the name of the people who were rude in the Senator's office. They'll deny everything when it hits the papers. Because those employees in the Senator's office don't want to loose their jobs, and the Senator won't keep employees who make him look unfriendly to immigrants in public (like a newspaper article), especially when votes may be involved.

You may also want to read this article:

http://www.visalaw.com/03aug2/10aug203.html

Good luck!
 
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Status Inquiry info N400 appln in Dallas

Hi to all Dallas people waiting to get the Oath letter after their interview..
I had called the customer service rep asking about the Status inquiry on my N400 and I got a letter from the BCIS local office which says "An officer is currently reviewing your case to detemine if an Oath Ceremony can be scheduled"...now can anyone else had got this notice and does this mean good/bad or just regular mill-of-the-run news..?

So Itoo..what's the latest on ur case? Since the senator wasnt helping u much, did u try contacting the Congressman's office? Dont think a lawyer can help us much in this case from whatever have heard n read since our file is 'sleeping' in the coffers of the local BCIS office..
 
i have a friend. her mother was interviewed in Dallas in mid-january. she received a letter last week for oath today (8/20 at downtown dallas). she did not do anything at all to speed up the process (no run to senator's office or BCIS).
 
i have a friend. her mother was interviewed in Dallas in mid-january. she received a letter last week for oath today (8/20 at downtown dallas). she did not do anything at all to speed up the process (no run to senator's office or BCIS).
Click to expand...

The Dallas office is short-staffed and have heavy case loads. That's the reason for most of the delays there.

The lady was smart to wait. Enquiries may have delayed her case.

The only way to speed up processing in the Dallas office is to lobby the local politicians to increase the budget of the Dallas office, so they can hire more adjudicators.
 
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Finally a US citizen

Can't believe the turn of events for me the past few days...
don't know where to begin but let me make a try

Things were looking hopeless for me. Did not get to trust any of the local lawyers who all seemed to be more interested in making money than actually offer solutions to accelerate my oath letter.

decided to go full blast at the congressmen and try my luck at other offices. the second office seemed more polite but not really useful in gettign any insights into what was holding my case up.
Blasted off tons of faxes and phone calls to all the offices i could think of including senators based in houston hoping it will get their attention.

Finally as luck would have it, i made contact in real-time with a staffer from a representative's office. She seemed to be knowledgeable fortunately, and i had to be extremely persuasive to get her attention to doing something for me. I followed up a day later and requested very boldly that she should try to get me into the Oath on the 20th [wed] as i was 99% done with everything from a BCIS angle. She did not promise that it would be done but said she will make a request to her internal contact at BCIS, and asked me not to have high expectations.

On tuesday, 19th i did not get any call, so i gave up. But as i was heading home late in the day, i did get a call from the staffer saying she got the ok from bcis and she would fax me the oath letter for a 9 am oath on the 20th. I did not believe it until i saw the fax.

there were about 40 people on the 20th morning. everything went smoothly. I asked many of them about when they applied and the unanimous answer was original petition was sent more than a year ago. Fastest case was Sept 02. So i guess the avg number is about a year. Interview dates ranged from nov to jan 03. Funny thing was one guy said he was arrested falsely and had to overturn the conviction, so it took him 1.5 years end to end. He sounded serious...

My advise is to get the help of congressmen in your area. I got a request from the staffer who helped me out NOT to give out her name or office number details as she is already inundated with requests for help. I have to oblige her unfortunately.

I was told that the I-130/486 petition for parents would take much longer if done in dallas than overseas by the BCIS lead Officer. FYI for those interested.

Good luck to everyone. My advice is be persistent with congressmen office immigration staffers and think of presenting a solid rationale on why your case is important whenever you get their live attention.

Itoo
 
Got Oath in Dallas

All,

I had my intereview in Dallas today. My date line is as follows:

1. PD: Jan 03 2003
2. FD: Feb 15 2003
3. ID: Sep 19 2003
4. OD: Sep 24 2003

The folks at the Dallas SC were polite and my interview went smoothly. The interviewer asked me if I had travelled outside US and I said yes and he asked me to tell the dates of travel. After the interview, the interviewer congratulted me for passing and asked me to wait. He mentioned that after reverification (where another office validates the Interviewers work) I would get my oath letter (445). After waiting for almost 45 minutes an officer came out and handed some of us the oath letter inviting us to the oath ceremony on the Sep 24 2003.

All in all my experience at the Dallas SC has been a very good one. Pls note my case was straight forward. meaning that there were no changes in name, no relocation etc. I did not contact any congressman and let teh government machinary do its work.

This forum has been extremely useful for me. Thanks to all.
 
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