OCI - Houston Tracker

Has anyone applied for Surrender Certificate via mail to Houston?

Hi,
We sent application for Surrender Certificate to Houston consulate.
We thought of applying for my wife's Surrender Certificate first then to OCI.

Application for Passport Cancellation was sent on July 3rd and recieved by Houston July 6th. We sent original indian passport, fee (20+20), copy of naturalization cert, US passport copy.

To this day, our money order (western union) has not been cashed. There is no way to find status. We are in Florida.

Is there anyone in the same situation like us. Has any one applied for Surrender Certificate via mail to Houston? What is the timeline like.

Thanks
 
Anyone who applied after April 28th, 2010 receive their OCI yet?

Hi all,

Have any of you who applied after the 28th of April receive their OCI or receive any communication from the Houston Consulate? I am starting to wonder if I just wasted close to $600 for no good as I would like to travel to India in a few months. Please let me know.
 
Thank you for your reply LiveandLetlive. YOu applied via travisa and it took 3 weeks.
Glad you got in time.

Has anyone applied for Surrender Certificate/Passport Cancellation by mail.
Anyone?

Please share your timeline and experience.

thanks
 
Surrender Certificate status

Hi
Our application for Surrender Certificate (Just SC only), seems to be moving.
Today I noticed my money order for Surrender Cert processing fee (western union 20+20) is cashed. I mailed the application July 3rd. The money order was cashed on August 3rd. One of these days, we should be getting our indian cancelled passport and surrender certificate back from houston, hopefully. I will keep you guys posted on the progress. Hope this helps folks who applied via mail to houston for Surrender Certificate.

Once we have (I have PIO, my wife applied for Surrender Certificate as new rule) our things in order, next step will be application for both our OCI s.

thanks
 
Any one who applied after 6/20 with online status updated?

Hi all,

Have any of you who applied after the 28th of April receive their OCI or receive any communication from the Houston Consulate? I am starting to wonder if I just wasted close to $600 for no good as I would like to travel to India in a few months. Please let me know.


I agree with you. I am also thinking I wasted money. I don't mind taking a little bit longer for processing. But atleast let us know what is going on. If Houston don't want to communicate at least they can reply to the emails OR answer the phone call OR atleast return the message. Does anyone know Indian high commissioner email/phone?
 
Something is drastically wrong at Houston. You can check the website on which one can check status and by some creative number play one can see that no one whose file acknowledgement number is greater than USAH006001010 ( the last 2 digits are common to all and represent the year, hence next higher number is 006001110)and higher have not been approved and there has been no new approvals in 15 days.
You can replace the H with N ( for New York) and c for chicago and see that tit is taking a lot less time in the other locations. And we as consumers who have paid lots of money have not received any explanations.
Is it time to write to the Secretary/ Launch a petition? call media?.....
The harassment of NRI Indians for just wanting to stay connected with the motherland would be a good story on Aaj Tak.
 
I found from other website that the last Online Registration No to be acknowledged is USAHI1469910 on June 11th. Nothing after that. I wonder what's going on. Do you think visiting them is worth it?
 
hi,
i am happy that my application got acknowledged. i sent the oci application for myself and my parents and it was received by the houston embassy on june 24. But my parents application is not acknowledged yet. I had forgot to attached one money order in thier appliction which i sent next day. i hope they got the money order and process it soon.
 
I have a question about submitting documents to get Surrender Certificate from Houston.

Do you need to submit only photo copy of N-400 Certificate, PP etc or you need to send self attested copies or notary signed copies. I could not find any clear guidelines about it on Houston web page.

Can some one who have applied for SC recently at Houston, share their experience. Thanks.
 
update

we applied for surrender certificate only via mail to houston. we got a cal from fedex yesterday that we might recieve something today in fedexmail. so we will know by tommorrow.

sunks, all I did was sent original old indian passport, two originals of application for surrender certificate (this I downloaded from cgihouston site), copy of us passport first and last 3 pages, copy of naturalization certificate. I sent one $40 moneyorder/check (which is $20 for SC processing fee + $20 for mailing charges) I will be able to tell you tommorrow based on what we recieved from fedex today. hope you can wait to hear from me.

i will keep you posted on our journey to OCI. Once we recieve my wife's cancelled indian passport and SC, we will both be applying for OCI with houston. I am a PIO, will be applying for OCI. My wife has no visa of any kind to india yet, but we will be applying for OCI.

thanks
 
Thanks for sharing info OCIJungle. I will wait for update from you with more info.

One thing I must say is that you have a very "INNOVATIVE" user id - OCIJUNGLE :cool::cool:
 
Update

Recieved my wife's surrender certificate today via FEDEX.
Total time was about 5 to 6 weeks, via mail. Another person in this group has about similar timeline.

sunks, thanks. glad u like my id.


This is what I recieved in fedexmail from houston today.

1. Surrender Certificate with consul signature and stamp on it. My wife's old indian passport started with 'Z', by mistake I wrote it as '2'. Houston was kind enough to correct it on my wife's Surrender Certificate.

2. I did not get any payment reciept (which we used to get for PIO fee or passport renewal or visa fee). This time, they wrote $40 on the Surrender Certificate. They sent me one copy. I did not fill the bottom box where it says 'applicants name Mr/Ms/etc' and country of citizenship. I thought this was supposed to be filled by houston. So they filled that part. I am writing all this, because there were few directions on the downloaded form. And it seems each consulate has its own version (for example San Fransisco had a photo requirement for SC, where as houston does NOT ask for photo for SC processing). Hope this helps someone in similar situation.

3. They sent the original cancelled indian passport "Passport Cancelled due Holder Acquired US Citizenship". both on first page and last page.

So thats what we got for $40 bucks. I sent $40 money order.

Here is what I sent with application.

1. Printed two original copies of downloaded Surrender Certificate application. I filled everything except for the bottom box where consul officer signs. I did NOT fill the name of applicant and country of citizenship in the bottom small box on Surr Cert application.

2. Sent $40.00 as fee (my wife acquired in 2006 her US citizenship). 20 for processing and 20 for FEDEX. (After the SC processing done by houston, FEDEX automated called with Tracking number the day before I actually recieved the fedex package. )

3. one photocopy of naturalization certificate. (I did not self attest -as the application doesnt ask for it)

4. US passport first 2 and last 2 pages - one copy (I did not self attest this either)

5. Original old unexpired indian passport (because my wife passport was still good till 2016).

6. I wrote a cover letter. basically something like "Dear Consul officer, we are sending application for SurrCert processing and Indian Passport Cancellation, please process with attached required documentation for your review. thanks blah blah"

I mailed it to Houston address with a attn: RENUNCIATION CELL/PASSPORT CANCELLATION DEPT, <Houston_consulate_address> via priority mail.

thats was it. Hope this helps other folks similar situation.

thanks,




My wife and I will apply for OCI now to houston via mail.
 
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Update on My OCI Status...

Hello Folks,

Here is an update on my OCI status. Almost exactly 3 months since I sent the application it has now been Granted. wow!!!! When they said 3 months for OCI looks like they maintain that :)....

Will send out updates when documents are printed and sent to Houston CGI...
 
Hello Folks,

Here is an update on my OCI status. Almost exactly 3 months since I sent the application it has now been Granted. wow!!!! When they said 3 months for OCI looks like they maintain that :)....

Will send out updates when documents are printed and sent to Houston CGI...

Things have been moving now on my OCI status. The documents have now been printed on Aug 12. So now have to wait for the documents to be dispatched and I plan on submitting my US passport in person and collecting the OCI. Will update you on how things go on that end once I get to that point.
 
Thanks for update, looks like we applied around same time

Waiting Waiting..

When I called consulate last week they said it's taking 5-6 Months now, glad to see some are moving faster.

---------------
Acknowledged: 5/10/10
Photos Scanned: 5/13/10
Granted:
Documents Printed:
Documents Dispatched:
Documents Received at HOUSTON:
 
Thanks for update, looks like we applied around same time

Waiting Waiting..

When I called consulate last week they said it's taking 5-6 Months now, glad to see some are moving faster.

---------------
Acknowledged: 5/10/10
Photos Scanned: 5/13/10
Granted:
Documents Printed:
Documents Dispatched:
Documents Received at HOUSTON:

I hope you see movement on yours soon. When I applied (which is around the same time as yours) I had called them a few weeks after and they said it was taking 3 months. I am presuming the new applications are taking longer. Not sure what the extra time is needed for other than the fact that they are under staffed and can't handle the load.

My documents have been dispatched and am waiting for it to reach the Houston CGI.
 
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Mailed OCI application to Houston. Got wife's surrender cert and cancelled passport a few days ago..
will keep you all posted on my case progress.....
 
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