Philadelphia PA - N-400 Timeline

Desidoc73

I do not mean this as a derogatory reply. It is just an appeal -

Yours is really a very insensitive querry. You know the people in this forum are grappling with the issue of the inefficiency of the immigration bureau, you have been in this spot before. We are playing an almost psychological war with ourselves worrying about our dealings with the immigration bureau.
Ironically, posting a "problem" like your current one is almost like gloating about your "predicament" while other people are miserably still in the waiting game with their papers.

I'm sure your "dilemma" is quite difficult in your situation, but please be mindful of the purpose of this forum and other people's sensitivities.
I hope for your understanding.

Thanks



desidoc73 said:
My timeline so far from what I can remember off the top of my head--I am post-call doc and been up all night:confused:

anyways

Oath Ceremony was April 26,2007

But I didnt have one day off to go to the passport office to apply for my passport. What should I do?

1.Expedited by mail and pray and hope...but from what I see on the news even those peopel arent getting their passports on time....weeks later and even missing vacations abroad.

2.Go to the Passport office in Downtown Philadelphia and apply in person...it says only people who are travelling within 14 days are supposed to do that. I am almost tempted to buy a ticket for a week to my relatives place in Canada or India just so I could get the passport faster. But DO I HAVE DO go through such measures? I am wondering if they will just let me get my passport if all documentation is there. I need visas too.

PLEASE HELP


THank you all for your information in the past few months.

desidoc73
Click to expand...
 
phillycitizen said:
anyone got oath letter recently from philly??? Any idea when the next oath is scheduled for in philly
Click to expand...

There is an oath at the Constitution Center on Sept 17 10 am or 10.30 am.

I called the Consti Center to see if their calendar of events shows any other oath date. The lady said that they have it there sporadically, but most are done at the District Court. Both places however if you call do not have the USCIS sched readily available.

Bottom line I suppose is that we really just have to wait it out some more.

Hope this helps.
 
Interview Day

Here is my experience

8.20 appointment at Callowhill. Got there at 8 am, gave my notice letter to the clerk. Did not get called for the interview until 10.40 am. The order of being called does not mak entire sense. People who came before me and after me who had appointment time of 9am and 11am got called for interview ahead of me.

Fortunately when my time came, the entire process took only 5 minutes. The officer went over my N-400 form to verify the info I supplied. Asked my name, which I spelled out instead of state simply so that no mistakes will be made. Also checked my birthdate, address, spouse, employment, travel dates. Basically anything that was in the n-400.

Then I was given a sheet of paper with 10 questions straight out of the civics/history fact sheet they have on their website. I wrote down the answers, he checked it and then he said congratulations, I passed. He handed me a paper which he said is the proof that I completed this process. He said I should get my interview letter sometime within the next three months. I asked what happens if I don't and I got the standard answer of just calling their 1800 number. As for the interview venue, he said it will be on the 4th floor of the Philadelphia/Callowhill office.

A few things that I noted: the adjunct paperwork (spouse's bank statement, IRS filings, marriage certificate) that they asked me to bring, he did not ask to see. The only documents I pulled out were my green card, driver's license and passport.

As of today, I have completed my interview. I checked the online status of my application and it is still there. Mine did not "disappear" as it the case of several folks here when they were about to get their IL/interview letter in the mail.

Hope this helps.
 
What is the timeline looking like in DE?

Still waiting for the IL.. Any one received the IL's recently...in Philly and in DE??

regards,
Manish
N400 Recvd date: 2/25/07
Fingerprint: 3/17 (FBI cleared on 3/18)
IL: still waiting patiently
 
manish_mohnot said:
Still waiting for the IL.. Any one received the IL's recently...in Philly and in DE??

regards,
Manish
N400 Recvd date: 2/25/07
Fingerprint: 3/17 (FBI cleared on 3/18)
IL: still waiting patiently
Click to expand...

PD 2/14/07
FP 3/22/07 (Cleared on 3/23)
IL: Still waiting
 
oath letter

today i got my oath letter. it was processed 8/10, sent from vermont 8/14 and i received today 8/17 for appointment at the philadelphia callowhill office on 8/29 at 2pm. I had my interview 7/27.

just as aside, the online status still has not "disappeared" and says my thing is in vermont, etc

hope everybody else gets their letter soon.

best of luck
 
today i got my oath letter. it was processed 8/10, sent from vermont 8/14 and i received today 8/17 for appointment at the philadelphia callowhill office on 8/29 at 2pm. I had my interview 7/27.
Click to expand...

Congratulations ! Oath a little over a month after interview is not bad at all. I suppose this is one of the smaller ceremonies they have with 50 or so people. You should be glad they didn't wait for the next mega-ceremony at the Convention Center (should be sometime in September I think).

-KM
 
Received Interview Letter

I have been following this forum for months now. It is very informative. This is my first post. I just wanted to post that my priority date is 3/12/07 and I received my IL letter with an interview date of 9/13/07 (almost 6 months to the day). This is for the Philadelphia DO and Vermont SC.

My online status has not changed.

Good luck to all.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi canuck162!

I too have applied in March and my Priority Daye os 03/20 although it is at a different Service Center/District Office. My Interview is scheduled for 09/19, one day before the 6-month mark. While I am pleased to get the interview almost 6 months after the Priority Date, I am wondering whether the USCIS sets Interview Dates just before the 6-month mark.
----------------------
Detroit DO - NSC
03/16/07 N-400 sent to NSC
03/20/07 Priority Date
03/23/07 Notice of Action letter received
03/23/07 FP letter received
04/12/07 FP done
09/19/07 Interview Appointment :) (Notice date July 13)
 
Still waiting for IL

I saw that people who mailed in March got IL's - which is good news. My posted date is 1/31/07 and FP date 2/22/07 and still waiting for IL. Any one who had posted in Jan 07 and FP in Feb got IL letters....? Please reply....
 
I saw that people who mailed in March got IL's - which is good news. My posted date is 1/31/07 and FP date 2/22/07 and still waiting for IL. Any one who had posted in Jan 07 and FP in Feb got IL letters....? Please reply....
Click to expand...

It depends to some extent on the IO assigned to your case (some IOs are more efficient than others) and that may sometimes explain small (days or weeks) differences in processing times. But the cases do get adjudicated in the priority date order and if someone who applied months after you already got their IL while you are still waiting, that may be a sign that your case has run into the dreaded name check. You may want to do an InfoPass to find out if that is indeed the case (not that you can do anything to expedite matters).

Good luck !

-KM
 
alacha said:
I saw that people who mailed in March got IL's - which is good news. My posted date is 1/31/07 and FP date 2/22/07 and still waiting for IL. Any one who had posted in Jan 07 and FP in Feb got IL letters....? Please reply....
Click to expand...

PD 2/14/07
FP 3/22/07 (Cleared on 3/23)
IL: Still waiting
 
Ara2000 said:
PD 2/14/07
FP 3/22/07 (Cleared on 3/23)
IL: Still waiting
Click to expand...

I noticed that too, people who filed in either jan or march got the IL. however, people who filed in Feb, atleast the one i know have not heard any thing yet.My 2 brothers and I filed our case in Late jan and the priority date is feb 1st. But we have not heard anything since finger printing.
By the way, I have been following this thread for long time now. It has been a very helpful place to find info.

Priority Date Feb 1st
 
Last edited by a moderator:
don't worry too much about not hearing anything since fingerprinting, sometimes it does take a while. i didn't hear anything for 8 months, from fingerprinting to interview letter. these things we really have no control over, so just try to live your normal routine, and don't go crazy. it will come. meanwhile you have your greencard as a fallback.

good luck



HopeGives_faith said:
I noticed that too, people who filed in either jan or march got the IL. however, people who filed in Feb, atleast the one i know have not heard any thing yet.My 2 brothers and I filed our case in Late jan and the priority date is feb 1st. But we have not heard anything since finger printing.
By the way, I have been following this thread for long time now. It has been a very helpful place to find info.

Priority Date Feb 1st
Click to expand...
 
OATH DAY

Got my Naturalization Cert today. Had a 2pm appointment at the Philadelphia Callowhill office. Ceremony started on time. To give you an idea of how longit may take from interview to oath, here is my experience.

It took at least 2 weeks to elapse after interview before an oath date was generated from me. On the actual day, the room can hold 200+ people, but there were only actually 73 people sworn in. There were however several "guests". I would say, easily 1:3 or 1:4 for each candidate to their family/friends/photographer kind of ratio. Most surprising of all 5 people did not make it to their oath day! Took a total of 90 minutes for entire ceremony. 1 hour for everybody's "verification" letter and green card to be inspected, another 30 for director to mak a speech, a "welcome" to citizenship viedeo to be shown and for your certificate to be handed out.

Tomorrow, I apply for my passport. For that, the original certificate has to be submitted with the application (scary!). I did ask the Immigration Officer (Garcia), very nice guy, what will happen, if hypothetically the post office loses my nat cert, he says he has never encountered such, but if it does happen, you can re-apply but it will take "awhile" to get done as you sort have to go through all the verification process again. Just photocopy for your records. They should send back the original though with your passport or shortly thereafter. By the way, after the day of your oath, your file will no longer be kept in the district office, it's considered close, so its best to be sure that all the info for your certificate (name spelling, date of birth, country of origin) is correct.

This post have helped me a lot in learnign to deal with the USCIS. Here are some things I also learned along the way:
1. The fingerprint check only takes 24 hrs
2. The hold up is with other background check, unfortunately there is no way to "follow-up" on this as unlike the FBI fingerprint hotline, there is no hotline for name check, According to the agent I spoke with, they are so backed up in Washington, they did not keep a hotline!
3. The processign time is trully different for everybody, don't be disheartened if you do not fall into the lucky "3-4 months" timeline. I did not make it that quickly, but I made it anyway.
4. It is useless to follow-up wiht the 1800 USCIS number regarding your status if you have not gone beyong the expected "365 days processing time". THey will read you a long "disclaimer" and in the end, just read to you whatever the online status that you can check yourself says. As for infopass, I have not tried that. But judging from my previous experiences going to the Phialdelphia immigration office to check on the status of my prior apps and pre-infopass era, its a hit and miss. Most of the time though, the clerks are heartless, irritable, don't really care kind of folks. So they will just end up making you feel worse for wasting your time.
4. The whole idea that your online case would "disappear" means the IL is coming soon, is not applicable to all. I am now a US citizen, and yet if I type my case/receipt number for the online status, it still says its in Vermont, etc

Thanks again for everybody who have made posts that were instructive. BEst of luck to all.

My timeline-

sent application to VSC
DO Philadelphia
N400 check cashed 10/31
PD 10/26
FP 11/7/27/07
Notice Date 6/12/07
Mail Posted 6/14/07 from Vermont
ID 7/27/07
Oath Letter Dated 8/10/07
Oath Letter Posted 8/14/07 (from Vermont)
Oath Received 8/17/07
Oath Day 8/29/07
 
Finally got an Oath Letter today for September 6th ceremony in Wilmington DE. It was sent last Thursday, took it 6 days to get to me.

Still cannot get over the fact that it took 4 months since my interview to the Oath Ceremony while in NJ and MD they do same day as interview... however I was warned about "slow Delaware" phenomenon when I moved here.

I would respectfully disagree with Golden Rabbit on the phone consults though. Last two times I called (including yesterday) after talking to a first level person, I requested and got transfered to a next level person, who I believe was an actual IO, who was able to read my actual file as opposed to just webpage available to myself. The trick is to get through the first level of defense. I am not sure if there are rules they use or it is just depends on whether you have a real convincing need for a answer.

Good luck to everyone, especially folks in DE.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top