Raleigh/Durham NC - N-400 Timeline

Thanks for the good wishes - this is a great community.

Just wait until oath day, when we can pursue our local, state, and federal officials on the issue of improving the process and services for those of us who follow all the rules and play nice while silently fuming over the treatment we received. (Neglect is maltreatment, even when it's a passive act.) I came late to this board (my bad), but this community is a big help to the waiting.

I can see why naturalized citizens take a more serious view of the right to vote than do some of those who were born citizens. We (fortunately) don't remember the trauma of our own birth, but the trauma of naturalization will surely stick!
 
Bobsmyth said:
The choice is yours..if you already made plans long in advance and don't want to change them ,then go for it. If on the other hand you can wait longer for the reschedule interview in October or November then do so. The way I look at it is that USCIS has been fuc$#^g with us since day one. From the receipting delay, to delays to get interview in first place, and now canceling interview. They have to realize that their incompetence won't be tolerated by us who are paying their salaries to watch the Olympics between interviews!:mad:
I only advocate going to a canceled interview since you, like myself, have been waiting since last summer while other applicants who applied just a few months ago have already had their interview. USCIS obviously does not look at individual cases or circumstances when deciding their matters.

What's even more maddening is reading on other threads that some DOs have sent applicants notices (G-56) to actually appear earlier that there previously scheduled interview...there is no consistency in their process between DOs.
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I completely agree. But since you obviously haven't received the dreaded notice yet, you may yet be lucky.
 
PhishC said:
Thanks for the good wishes - this is a great community.

Just wait until oath day, when we can pursue our local, state, and federal officials on the issue of improving the process and services for those of us who follow all the rules and play nice while silently fuming over the treatment we received. (Neglect is maltreatment, even when it's a passive act.) I came late to this board (my bad), but this community is a big help to the waiting.

I can see why naturalized citizens take a more serious view of the right to vote than do some of those who were born citizens. We (fortunately) don't remember the trauma of our own birth, but the trauma of naturalization will surely stick!
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Very nicely put. Sometimes when you go through a very frustrating, traumatic process, you appreciate the end result more than if you didn't. I may not be able to vote this time, but I will savour it in four years time!
 
eau_xplain said:
Sorry to hear about all the de-scheduling that's been going on at Durham.

I was at another immigration forum and saw 2 people who sent their N400 to TSC this month (August) and their files have been transferred to NBC for "administrative processing". I'm still waiting for my NOA but I'm curious if anyone has heard of this being a new trend at TSC or these two are isolated cases.
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I think it started this summer (you can find this info on Internet). Now all naturalization cases are sent to NBC for initial processing.
 
PhishC said:
I just received my oath ceremony notice for September 5th at the new Raleigh Convention Center!! It feels like the longest wait for anything in my entire life, but in the end it was "only" 43 days. 438 days from my PD, but who's counting now?

fbanna - good moves today, you aced it. If the IO said the next available oath date is October, it sounds like the September 5 and later in September dates are already full. But the beginning of October is only just over a month away and would be in time to register to vote.

Good luck to all - patience does pay off!
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Was your oath letter sent from Durham ? or from TSC ?. When was it mailed ? I am trying to see if I can still be lucky enough to get oath in September.

Anyway, i will be at the September 5, 2008 oath ceremony as I will attending theopening of the new convention center.
 
fbanna79 said:
Yes, it is. You can invite parents, friends etc..... It is called public oath ceremony. Anybody can attend.
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I'm aware that applicants can invite friends and parents, but can anyone from general public just walk in without an invite? Perhaps you have an invite from someone who is undergoing the oath?
 
Do you think that you have to show an invite to someone before emtering the oath event ? If that is the case, is there any USCIS invite form for the oath for family members? My guess is no. Given 1 -hour oath for 1000 people, i don't expect them to be able to verify all attendees plus all new citizens within this time frame.

This is also the opening ceremony of the Convention Center, so there will be a lot of traffic over there on the 5th.
 
fbanna79 said:
Was your oath letter sent from Durham ? or from TSC ?. When was it mailed ? I am trying to see if I can still be lucky enough to get oath in September.

Anyway, i will be at the September 5, 2008 oath ceremony as I will attending theopening of the new convention center.
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The letter was sent from the TSC with a date of August 15th. It tells me to report at 10:30am prompt. It looks like they have set aside 2 1/2 hours for "preprocessing" in order to keep the ceremony to the planned one hour. After all, there will be a lot going on! I have no idea what the setup will be for guests and there was nothing in the letter to indicate any particular process.

No matter what, the place will be a zoo - getting there at 10:30am for me will be fine, because I'll be "busy" waiting for my paperwork to be processed and getting the seating assignment and behavioral rules before being ushered into the ceremony. As the Grand Opening itself starts at noon and "Raleigh Wide Open" kicks off at 11am, I'm sure confusion will reign.

As to the ceremony being open to the public, I'm sure that's generally true but it must depend in part on the venue, capacity constraints and "crowd control" policies. As it's a new place, all those aspects have yet to tested.
 
PhishC said:
The letter was sent from the TSC with a date of August 15th. It tells me to report at 10:30am prompt. It looks like they have set aside 2 1/2 hours for "preprocessing" in order to keep the ceremony to the planned one hour. After all, there will be a lot going on! I have no idea what the setup will be for guests and there was nothing in the letter to indicate any particular process.

No matter what, the place will be a zoo - getting there at 10:30am for me will be fine, because I'll be "busy" waiting for my paperwork to be processed and getting the seating assignment and behavioral rules before being ushered into the ceremony. As the Grand Opening itself starts at noon and "Raleigh Wide Open" kicks off at 11am, I'm sure confusion will reign.

As to the ceremony being open to the public, I'm sure that's generally true but it must depend in part on the venue, capacity constraints and "crowd control" policies. As it's a new place, all those aspects have yet to tested.
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Thanks PhishC. Hopefully, they will send my oath letter within the next 2 weeks.
 
fbanna79 said:
Do you think that you have to show an invite to someone before emtering the oath event ? If that is the case, is there any USCIS invite form for the oath for family members? My guess is no. Given 1 -hour oath for 1000 people, i don't expect them to be able to verify all attendees plus all new citizens within this time frame.

This is also the opening ceremony of the Convention Center, so there will be a lot of traffic over there on the 5th.
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Seeing that they have a set number of spaces available for the oath, I doubt anyone can just walk in from the public without any prior notification or invitation.
Just because the convention center is open to public doesn't mean the auditorium for the oath will be. Anyways, since you're going you'll find out one way or another.
 
2 months since passing interview in Charlotte... no oath letter from Durham yet

Hi all, just stumbled across this thread doing some searches on the Raleigh/Durham processing center...

I live in Raleigh and went to Charlotte on Jun 18 for my naturalization interview... I passed and the inspector told me they would be forwarding my approval on to the Durham processing center... she said that it usually takes about 2 months to be scheduled for a ceremony.

I still have not heard anything - is this normal? Ive read some posts about a Sep 5 ceremony... I am guessing I won't be scheduled for this one (which is acutally fine by me as I will be travelling out of the country for the last half of Sep so I wouldn't be able to get a US passport in time).

To those people who've been scheduled for the Sep 5 ceremony - when were your interview dates?

Does anyone know how often the ceremonies are held?

Thanks in advance!

hyperseer
 
hyperseer said:
Hi all, just stumbled across this thread doing some searches on the Raleigh/Durham processing center...

I live in Raleigh and went to Charlotte on Jun 18 for my naturalization interview... I passed and the inspector told me they would be forwarding my approval on to the Durham processing center... she said that it usually takes about 2 months to be scheduled for a ceremony.

I still have not heard anything - is this normal? Ive read some posts about a Sep 5 ceremony... I am guessing I won't be scheduled for this one (which is acutally fine by me as I will be travelling out of the country for the last half of Sep so I wouldn't be able to get a US passport in time).

To those people who've been scheduled for the Sep 5 ceremony - when were your interview dates?

Does anyone know how often the ceremonies are held?

Thanks in advance!

hyperseer
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Welcome to this thread. Someone made an infopass and was told that there may be another ceremony in September and another in October.

The september 5th ceremony seems to be the second naturalization held by the Durham DO after the one held during the opening ceremony.

i had my interview last Friday and was told by IO that oath may be in October.

I am very confident that you will be scheduled for Sept 5 and that your notice will come today or tomorrow. As for the passport, you may be able to get it within 2 days if you go directly to a regional passport center. Peeple were even able to get it within hours.
 
fbanna79 said:
I just discovered another forum and found out that there was more people whose interviews were descheduled. I don't want to scare Bobsmyth but there are at least 1 person sent home on the day of his interview because they were too busy.

http://www.bashyamspiro.com/Blog/ta...rticleId/65/Durham-NC-USCIS-Office-Opens.aspx
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Thanks, fbanna. This is very helpful. It means I would just be wasting my time by going in on my original date pretending that I had not received my descheduling letter.
 
SafferJoe said:
Thanks, fbanna. This is very helpful. It means I would just be wasting my time by going in on my original date pretending that I had not received my descheduling letter.
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Well, you never know. unless you have a very tight schedule on that day, I would try. What I saw last friday may occur again and you may be interviewed.
 
SafferJoe,

Have you called the USCIS to ask why your interview was descheduled? It's not necessarily because the DO overbooked interviews and it could be that your file hasn't been transferred to the DO for god knows what reason.
 
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