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Me and my spouse are naturalized citizens as of yesterday. Very pleasant and professional experience. Got the feeling that the officers there are doing their job and not there to find holes in your application, but to make sure you are legally allowed to naturalize. If you have everything in order, you are good to go. Below is our detailed experience.
Both arrived at the federal building at 9:00am, went up to the 15th floor, gave our interview letters at windows 1 and took a seat. There are 3 doors and door 1 and 2 are frequently used. Very nice setup, looks very professional (was expecting much less but was pleasantly surprised). There were about 100 people already sitting there and names were being called out on a microphone. From what I understood (overheard an IO speaking with someone who was complaining about the wait) the cases are distributed among the available IO's at the beginning of the day. If the IO that your case is allocated to gets a complicated case before you and takes time, it means your case is delayed. At around 10:45, my name was called first and I went through with my interview, which lasted about 5 minutes. Spouse was called in at around 11:00, the interview lasted about 15 minutes. We both got on the 11:30 oath, sat through the initial lecture about N-600, passport, allegiance, saying the oath out loudly (make sure you do, they monitor and pull you out if you don't), etc. The supervisor came out next, gave a speech, watched a video, took the oath, sang a song, and were given our certificate.
My interview experience - got called by a stern but polite lady, walked in to her office. She asked me to stand and take oath and then asked me to sit. She asked for passport, gc but didn't ask for drivers license. Didn't really look at the application, was glancing through a thick folder and her computer screen. Asked me a few questions about arrest, drugs, prostitution, visits of greater than 6 months etc. Then as she was glancing through the application, saw the section for arrests and asked me why I said no to arrests question when I had entries in that section. I told her they were traffic tickets (I had two) and asked her if she wanted to see the court dispositions. She said yes and went through it carefully, ticking off a few sections, verifying the status was paid, put them all together and added it to the bottom of the file. Next she gave me a sheet of paper, asked me to write a sentence (can't remember). While I was writing the sentence, she flipped through both my passports (I had lost the old one, but found it just a few days ago) but not sure what she got out of it (flipping was too fast if you ask me). Next she started asking the 6 questions - name of national anthem, we elect senator for how long, how many representatives, name of vice president, don't remember.... Got all six right, and she gave me the form confirming that I had passed the test and she is recommending me for approval.
Spouse had longer process. The officer apologized for the delay, did not administer the oath, asked six questions (freedom of religion, stars on flag represent, longest river, state governer, chief justice name, one promise when you become US citizen). Asked to write "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves". Was told "you passed the history/civics test" and now he would go through the application in detail to verify eligibility for naturalization. Asked about date of birth, date first entered in to US, whether first entry was as a PR or as a non-immigrant, asked if spouse was a PR and was also taking the test and had already passed, went through all yes/no questions and finally gave the letter confirming recommendation for citizenship.
All in all, a very pleasant experience. We were well prepared with every possible documentation but none was requested. For my interview, it seemed like the IO had already gone through my file and had hand picked what she wanted to ask me.
Thanks to all the gurus on this forum for answering my queries in the past. I'll be back occassionally for the next few days, so feel free to check with me on any questions.
Both arrived at the federal building at 9:00am, went up to the 15th floor, gave our interview letters at windows 1 and took a seat. There are 3 doors and door 1 and 2 are frequently used. Very nice setup, looks very professional (was expecting much less but was pleasantly surprised). There were about 100 people already sitting there and names were being called out on a microphone. From what I understood (overheard an IO speaking with someone who was complaining about the wait) the cases are distributed among the available IO's at the beginning of the day. If the IO that your case is allocated to gets a complicated case before you and takes time, it means your case is delayed. At around 10:45, my name was called first and I went through with my interview, which lasted about 5 minutes. Spouse was called in at around 11:00, the interview lasted about 15 minutes. We both got on the 11:30 oath, sat through the initial lecture about N-600, passport, allegiance, saying the oath out loudly (make sure you do, they monitor and pull you out if you don't), etc. The supervisor came out next, gave a speech, watched a video, took the oath, sang a song, and were given our certificate.
My interview experience - got called by a stern but polite lady, walked in to her office. She asked me to stand and take oath and then asked me to sit. She asked for passport, gc but didn't ask for drivers license. Didn't really look at the application, was glancing through a thick folder and her computer screen. Asked me a few questions about arrest, drugs, prostitution, visits of greater than 6 months etc. Then as she was glancing through the application, saw the section for arrests and asked me why I said no to arrests question when I had entries in that section. I told her they were traffic tickets (I had two) and asked her if she wanted to see the court dispositions. She said yes and went through it carefully, ticking off a few sections, verifying the status was paid, put them all together and added it to the bottom of the file. Next she gave me a sheet of paper, asked me to write a sentence (can't remember). While I was writing the sentence, she flipped through both my passports (I had lost the old one, but found it just a few days ago) but not sure what she got out of it (flipping was too fast if you ask me). Next she started asking the 6 questions - name of national anthem, we elect senator for how long, how many representatives, name of vice president, don't remember.... Got all six right, and she gave me the form confirming that I had passed the test and she is recommending me for approval.
Spouse had longer process. The officer apologized for the delay, did not administer the oath, asked six questions (freedom of religion, stars on flag represent, longest river, state governer, chief justice name, one promise when you become US citizen). Asked to write "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves". Was told "you passed the history/civics test" and now he would go through the application in detail to verify eligibility for naturalization. Asked about date of birth, date first entered in to US, whether first entry was as a PR or as a non-immigrant, asked if spouse was a PR and was also taking the test and had already passed, went through all yes/no questions and finally gave the letter confirming recommendation for citizenship.
All in all, a very pleasant experience. We were well prepared with every possible documentation but none was requested. For my interview, it seemed like the IO had already gone through my file and had hand picked what she wanted to ask me.
Thanks to all the gurus on this forum for answering my queries in the past. I'll be back occassionally for the next few days, so feel free to check with me on any questions.
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. They all have a professional attitude and will take the time to let you get to the door and usher you in. They will wait for you if you need extra time to get to the door.