steelersfan
Registered Users (C)
My appointment was at 1 PM. I reached the building at 11 after parking down the street in the $14/all day lot.
No issues getting into the building early. Went to the cafeteria for coffee and to review the 100 questions. There were a few other people sitting around looking through their materials as well, despite the sign that said no loitering.
I went upstairs to room 1512 at about 12:10 PM. The guard asked me if I had a cell phone and asked me to switch it off when I indicated I had it in my pocket (see my other post on cellphones/blackberries).
Went to window #1 and submitted my interview letter, and was given a red piece of paper asking what test I wanted. Just as an aside, this facility is much nicer than where I interviewed for my marriage-based green card in late 2001. That was on the 3rd floor (I think).
As a second aside, EVERY single person in the waiting room was there for their naturalization interview. Not sure if Newark just does a whole lot at one time once a week or every two weeks. There were at least 3 people with lawyers, and at least 2 couples who were both going through their interviews (obviously employment-based green cards in the past).
Officer AC announced my name at about 1:20 PM and asked me to come to door #2. I was hoping for one of the other officers who seemed very nice. Officer AC was professional but fairly curt.
In his office he asked me to put my jacket and bag aside, and gave me the oath. As I started to sit down I said I have some updates to the app (my other posts refer to this -- 2 missed trips and a ticket from last week). He said to hold on -- we'll get to that later.
He handed me 4 pieces of paper and asked me to write my A# and date on all. The first was 10 civics questions, second was 3 simple sentences and the third was 3 blank sections. Can't remember what the fourth one was.
As I finished the paper with the civics questions I asked if I should answer them. Officer AC said in a somewhat annoyed voice to just do as he says.
He then proceeded to ask me the 10 questions (some I remember):
1. When was the constitution adopted
2. Who is the speaker of the house
3. What is one of the longest river in the USA
4. Who were the original settlers of the country
As I answered he wrote down my answers on the paper. I got my first six correct and we went on to the writing part (Abraham Lincoln was the president during the civil war). Then we went on to the reading comprehension which went fine as well.
We went through my app page by page with him marking all answers with a red pen. On the trips page he asked if I had taken 6 trips, and I said no - 8 and handed him my updated page for the app. He returned the old page and hole punched the new one. Verified height, marriage status for me and wife, # of kids, address, day time phone number, which I screwed up -- my app had my cell phone, I gave him my home phone. He said that's your evening phone, and I quickly gave my cell phone number.
He didn't ask any of the standard questions, just marked them with the red pen.
Now comes the interesting part. On the page with my one speeding ticket from 1997 he paused and stared for a few minutes and said that in addition to the "have you ever been cited" question (#16) I should have marked yes to questions #17 and #18. He said if I paid a fine it means I was charged with a crime, and convicted. I said I didn't realize that... He crossed out the two "no" answers and marked two "yes" spots.
I then told him about my new ticket (ornament hanging from rearview mirror -NJ law 39:3-74). He looked very surprised and said he wrote tickets for 5 years and had never heard of such a thing. I showed him the ticket and the fine paid receipt. He looked slightly pissed off and asked me to write it into the app. I did so - and he looked at it, shook his head, smirked and muttered "those guys in Wayne..." (my town).
By now I'm getting slightly nervous...
He asked me to sigh the app, and as he was signing it he suddenly asked "What's the Constitution?" I replied "it's the law of the land." He stopped, looked up and said you're missing a key point. An adjective. I added "supreme law of the land" and he nodded. Finished signing the paper.
At this point he started flipping though the rest of my file - the 485, my tax returns, and stopped several times to read the info (as my nervousness increased).
He finally signed a piece of paper with congratulations etc etc, and gave me the oath notice. Told me to wait outside for my name to be announced.
This part was done in about 10 minutes, though it seemed longer at the time
Waited again for about 1.5 hours. Lots of people called to the windows to turn in their greencards, sign the certs and get their little history booklets with a pocket copy of the constitution.
At about 4:30 we were all lead down the hall to a large meeting room. There were at least 64 people taking the oath (4 rows, 8 seats, 2 sections). We were asked several times to fill up all seats, and family members told to sit in the back.
One of the supervisors gave a nice speech, administered the oath and the pledge of allegiance. We were all handed the certs and I was back on the street by 5:15 PM.
All in all, exactly 4 months from my priority date (11/12/08) to the oath.
Good luck everyone!
No issues getting into the building early. Went to the cafeteria for coffee and to review the 100 questions. There were a few other people sitting around looking through their materials as well, despite the sign that said no loitering.
I went upstairs to room 1512 at about 12:10 PM. The guard asked me if I had a cell phone and asked me to switch it off when I indicated I had it in my pocket (see my other post on cellphones/blackberries).
Went to window #1 and submitted my interview letter, and was given a red piece of paper asking what test I wanted. Just as an aside, this facility is much nicer than where I interviewed for my marriage-based green card in late 2001. That was on the 3rd floor (I think).
As a second aside, EVERY single person in the waiting room was there for their naturalization interview. Not sure if Newark just does a whole lot at one time once a week or every two weeks. There were at least 3 people with lawyers, and at least 2 couples who were both going through their interviews (obviously employment-based green cards in the past).
Officer AC announced my name at about 1:20 PM and asked me to come to door #2. I was hoping for one of the other officers who seemed very nice. Officer AC was professional but fairly curt.
In his office he asked me to put my jacket and bag aside, and gave me the oath. As I started to sit down I said I have some updates to the app (my other posts refer to this -- 2 missed trips and a ticket from last week). He said to hold on -- we'll get to that later.
He handed me 4 pieces of paper and asked me to write my A# and date on all. The first was 10 civics questions, second was 3 simple sentences and the third was 3 blank sections. Can't remember what the fourth one was.
As I finished the paper with the civics questions I asked if I should answer them. Officer AC said in a somewhat annoyed voice to just do as he says.
He then proceeded to ask me the 10 questions (some I remember):
1. When was the constitution adopted
2. Who is the speaker of the house
3. What is one of the longest river in the USA
4. Who were the original settlers of the country
As I answered he wrote down my answers on the paper. I got my first six correct and we went on to the writing part (Abraham Lincoln was the president during the civil war). Then we went on to the reading comprehension which went fine as well.
We went through my app page by page with him marking all answers with a red pen. On the trips page he asked if I had taken 6 trips, and I said no - 8 and handed him my updated page for the app. He returned the old page and hole punched the new one. Verified height, marriage status for me and wife, # of kids, address, day time phone number, which I screwed up -- my app had my cell phone, I gave him my home phone. He said that's your evening phone, and I quickly gave my cell phone number.
He didn't ask any of the standard questions, just marked them with the red pen.
Now comes the interesting part. On the page with my one speeding ticket from 1997 he paused and stared for a few minutes and said that in addition to the "have you ever been cited" question (#16) I should have marked yes to questions #17 and #18. He said if I paid a fine it means I was charged with a crime, and convicted. I said I didn't realize that... He crossed out the two "no" answers and marked two "yes" spots.
I then told him about my new ticket (ornament hanging from rearview mirror -NJ law 39:3-74). He looked very surprised and said he wrote tickets for 5 years and had never heard of such a thing. I showed him the ticket and the fine paid receipt. He looked slightly pissed off and asked me to write it into the app. I did so - and he looked at it, shook his head, smirked and muttered "those guys in Wayne..." (my town).
By now I'm getting slightly nervous...
He asked me to sigh the app, and as he was signing it he suddenly asked "What's the Constitution?" I replied "it's the law of the land." He stopped, looked up and said you're missing a key point. An adjective. I added "supreme law of the land" and he nodded. Finished signing the paper.
At this point he started flipping though the rest of my file - the 485, my tax returns, and stopped several times to read the info (as my nervousness increased).
He finally signed a piece of paper with congratulations etc etc, and gave me the oath notice. Told me to wait outside for my name to be announced.
This part was done in about 10 minutes, though it seemed longer at the time
Waited again for about 1.5 hours. Lots of people called to the windows to turn in their greencards, sign the certs and get their little history booklets with a pocket copy of the constitution.
At about 4:30 we were all lead down the hall to a large meeting room. There were at least 64 people taking the oath (4 rows, 8 seats, 2 sections). We were asked several times to fill up all seats, and family members told to sit in the back.
One of the supervisors gave a nice speech, administered the oath and the pledge of allegiance. We were all handed the certs and I was back on the street by 5:15 PM.
All in all, exactly 4 months from my priority date (11/12/08) to the oath.
Good luck everyone!
