Pomona/Fairplex oath experience
First of all, there is plenty of parking available on a pretty rundown open parking lot outside the Fairplex. It is flat $6 fee.
Since the number of applicants is very large they had the following procedure for the afternoon ceremony:
-they did not let applicants into blgd #4 (where the ceremony is held) till 12:30 (the appointment time)
- Non applicants are not allowed to be with applicants when entering this bldg. They have to enter from another door and have to stay in a different area from where they can see. But it is quite far from the stage and I believe space is limited (from what I could see)
- Applicants go into bldg #4 and show the appt letter to
ANY one of the 40 odd CIS worker who are sitting behind a table. (Remember, these worker will serve a more useful role that I will explain later)
- the worker will ask you to confirm that you answered the questions at back of appt corrrectly, then take away your GC, and scribble a okay on the letter
- Then you continue towards the seating area and someone from CIS will seat applicants in a certain order.
- Ceremony starts after EVERYONE has been seated. This can take a long time especially if you were one of the early ones.
- Ceremony include the pledge of allegiance, congratulatory video message from the President, the national anthem etc
- To prevent chaos, at a time, they start "dismissing" a small group of people to collect their certificates and leave the bldg. The order in which people are dismissed is the same as you were seated in the first place.
So, if you want to leave the place earlier, make sure you are seated earlier too.
- one of these 40 odd workers I mentioned earlier has your certificate. Each worker has a certain three digit range # written on the wall behind them. Which worker has your certificates depends on the last three digits of the you A#. So, for eg, you have a A# ending with 054, you would go to worker who say has the number range 043-059 written on the wall behind him. You knew about test of english to get citizenship. But did you know of this secret test of basic math too at oath time
I was among the first few people. So I did not get a whole lot of traffic getting out. But I can imagine the one exit would get pretty backed up as more and more people start exiting the facility. Of course the downside of reaching there early is to endure the long wait. As with everything in dealings with CIS, patience is a great virtue.
Hope this helps those who would be going to Pomona.
Mahesh