Rescheduling citizenship interview experience at the Minneapolis St. Paul district of

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gopalmn1965

Registered Users (C)
Hi,
I applied for citizenship on October 25th, 2006 at NSC.I got fingerprinted on November 15nth 2006 at St.Paul Minnesota. Received interview noticefor January 16nth 2007. I visited India between December 9nth 2006 and January 16nth 2007. As my day of arrival coincided withmy interview I asked USCIS Bloomington to reshedule my interview to anyday after January 16nth.To my utter disbelief USCIS rescheduled my interview again on January 16nth changing times from 11am to 2.30 pm.I came to Minneapolis on January 16nth at 8pm and opened the letter to see how well bueracracy works in USCIS without paying attention to customer needs. I had to send agian the request to reschedule my interview again on January 17nth explaining what I had done before to reschedule my interview before I went home.I also took an InfoPass on January 22nd 2007 and explained to the IO my situation and he made copies of the documentation which I mailed on January 17nth and said that he would send the info to the examination unit. On 25th January I got a letter from USCIS again asking why I could not attend the interviewand asked for explaination to be mailed by February 23rd 2007. I promptly mailed back my response on February 1st 2007 with my explaination resubmitting the information which I mailed january 17nth 2007 and the information I provided the IO during my infopass appointment. On February 2nd I received a interview notice saying that my interview was scheduled for March 6th 2007. My interview went very well and I passed the interview. I am going to narrate my interview experience at The Bloomington office in Minnesota in a new thread. Hope this information is helpful.
Lesson Learnt: Do not move out of the country once your interview is scheduled unless it is an emergency. I planed my India trip befor I applied for citizenship and did not expect this quick a turnaround for interview times and paid a price unintentionally for no fault of mine.
 
Thanks for sharing your experience!!!

Despite all your ordeals, you were lucky! You manage to re-schedule your interview on a very fast timeline (for USCIS) and you were also lucky that you are under DO that has high processing speed.

The following should not come as surprise to many folks:

1) Do not reschedule any USCIS citizenship appointments.....do only that if it is a matter of MAJOR emergency. MAJOR emergency is not a tourist trip, vacation, furniture delivery, business meeting......It is a urgent hospital care (things like heart attack), life & death, unavoidable acts of god....

2) Think about this....you will have hopefully only ONE citzenship interview for the rest of your life.

3) Always monitor your mailbox....if you are outside of the country make sure that someone is checking your mail and notifying you of any USCIS letters.

4) Re-schedule your trips if needed. I rather pay $100 fee for flight reservation change penalty than re-schedule citizenship interview.

5) Interview is always announced at least 3-4 weeks in advance. Plan accordingly. Do not overdo with long absences from US.

6) While we all would like to have USCIS act more like a busniess unit with a perfect customer service....IT IS NOT.....and unfortunatelly while there are a number of great IO officers, lot of good ppl trying to make a difference, the whole system is generally not customer-oriented. For good or for bad reason.....

7) Do not confuse USCIS system more than you have to. USCIS system is not good in handling sudden changes, re-schedulings, moving files & papers, address changes.....It is quite possible that you can cause some "unwanted" effects around your file handling when you play with re-scheudling. For example, DO can return by accident your file to VSC and close it....

8) Correcting USCIS administrative mistakes is costly, stressful and takes time. Better go with the flow and make your case "plain vanilla".....as much as you can....

My 2c....I'm not a lawyer or an immigration expert. I'm just an ordinary guy. You are soley responsbile for your actions.
 
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great response after reading my rescheduling ordeal

Hi,
Hard work, derermination, precision and follow through are key ingredients in making a favorable envoironment when working with USCIS. I really worked to get my interview rescheduled and left no stone unturned to achieve this.
 
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