San Jose, CA - N-400 Timeline

Postponing Inteview.

Hi All,
I have received my interview letter and my interview is scheduled in the first week of December. However I need to travel to India during that time. The interview letter says that "if you cannot keep the appointment, please return this letter immediately and request for a new appointment".

What does it mean by returning the interview letter. Will they give a new interview letter with the new date? Usually is it safe to postpone? I mean will they give the interview date of our choice,i.e for ex after I come back from India during the 2nd week of January 08,will they honour that request. How does that work?

Does any one have idea about the above issue. Please share your thoughts and opinions asap. This is very important for me and need to act immediately.

Looking for quick responses.

Thanks in advance.
 
I too suggest postponing your India trip.
Unless it is not too important for you to get US citizenship (you can afford time delay for who knows how long)
 
You might end up having to change your nickname to unluckyjack. I wouldn't risk it. You could end up stuck behind the avalanche of applications in June/July. I don't know how likely this is, but I wouldn't risk it unless you have a lot of time and patience in your hands. Other than that I think it is easy to reschedule the interview, only problem is you don't get to choose your next appointment date, and the application might end in a black hole. I don't mean to scare you. I know someone who got into some airline problem getting back from a trip and his wife missed the interview and he had to reschedule for her, she ended up getting the interview in a month or two and naturalized without problem. It works fine most of the time, but it adds some risk to your process.

PS: I would do a search of the forum for reschedule to see how other people have done it, it is quicker than trying your luck to see if someone who has done this is still visiting the forum. One of the great advantages of this forum is that it archives the contributions of so many people. You don't always need someone to answer your question, but to look for the answers yourself.

My 2 cents.
luckyjack said:
Hi All,
I have received my interview letter and my interview is scheduled in the first week of December. However I need to travel to India during that time. The interview letter says that "if you cannot keep the appointment, please return this letter immediately and request for a new appointment".

What does it mean by returning the interview letter. Will they give a new interview letter with the new date? Usually is it safe to postpone? I mean will they give the interview date of our choice,i.e for ex after I come back from India during the 2nd week of January 08,will they honour that request. How does that work?

Does any one have idea about the above issue. Please share your thoughts and opinions asap. This is very important for me and need to act immediately.

Looking for quick responses.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
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Hi Luckyjack,

I had to reschedule the interview appointment for my wife and I, since we were expecting a new addition to the family and the expected delivery date was in the same week as the interview date. I sent back the original notice with a covering letter explaining why we can not keep the appointment and requested a new date either before a certain date or after a certain date.

Within 3 weeks or so, I got 2 sets of letters - one mentioning that interview cancelled for old date and another giving the new interview date.

So, it's possible - but in my case, there was no way I could have asked the baby to come at a different time :)

Now, my wife is a citizen and I'm still waiting for oath letter, even though we were both interviewed on the same day, same time (different officers).

Hope this helps.


luckyjack said:
Hi All,
I have received my interview letter and my interview is scheduled in the first week of December. However I need to travel to India during that time. The interview letter says that "if you cannot keep the appointment, please return this letter immediately and request for a new appointment".

What does it mean by returning the interview letter. Will they give a new interview letter with the new date? Usually is it safe to postpone? I mean will they give the interview date of our choice,i.e for ex after I come back from India during the 2nd week of January 08,will they honour that request. How does that work?

Does any one have idea about the above issue. Please share your thoughts and opinions asap. This is very important for me and need to act immediately.

Looking for quick responses.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
Ok, let us say the trip is postponed. Now after the interview is done and the next day I leave for India for 4 weeks. Now after the interview, there will be oath as well right?,which usually comes in a couple of weeks. So even in that case, I will still miss the oath as well. Wouldn't I? So basically I have to complete all this process and then leave for India. Is that the best method? Obviously everyone wants to go in December right?,that is the time,everyone gets leave.
 
So if I understood this correctly, the recommendation is that it is better to finish the interview and leave may be on the same day. So if the oath letter comes in between, then that can be postponed.,right? It is much better than postponing the interview. Am I understanding this correctly? Please clarify.
 
Luckyjack,

We had to postpone my wife's interview. We mailed USCIS and never heard from them. The application vanished into a blackhole... forcing us start again from the beginning. This experience may be an outlier (at least I hope so), but just so that you know that outliers like these do exist...

Could you post the usual collection of dates (PD, IL, ILR, Oath, etc) for you here? Thanks.

luckyjack said:
So if I understood this correctly, the recommendation is that it is better to finish the interview and leave may be on the same day. So if the oath letter comes in between, then that can be postponed.,right? It is much better than postponing the interview. Am I understanding this correctly? Please clarify.
Click to expand...
 
My recommendation would be to cancel your trip plans and travel around California, save some money and contribute to the local economy ;) If I were in your shoes, well, I was in your shoes this summer, I would give priority to immigration over vacation. This summer I decided to work around my interview and oath dates and take it easy with vacation. However, everybody is different. I had expectations of getting the interview in the summer and the oath soon after so I didn't buy any tickets or made any big plans ahead of the summer. On the other hand you might have tickets (I'm too lazy to scroll back to see if you said this) and you don't want to lose money, it's your call, but there is a chance that things can go bad if you reschedule, but I also agree that for many people it ends up working alright. It's your call. It would seem that rescheduling the oath ceremony is somewhat less risky than rescheduling the interview.

My 2 cents.
 
After Citizenship: Indian Visa & passport cancellation

This information is from the Consulate General of India, San Francisco CA.

Effective October 1st, 2007
Travisa Outsourcing (http://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/)
Will handle all requests for Indian visas.

Persons of Indian Origin:
Persons of Indian Origin applying for a visa for the FIRST time on a US passport must submit their Indian passport and a completed Renunciation Form (http://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/pdf/renunciation.pdf) along with the application form for cancellation and return. (United States Citizens Only)

02/14/07 - Priority date
04/03/07 - FP
10/10/07 - Interview completed
??/??/?? - Oath
 
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everybody is quite

I expected a lot of interview letters for April priority dates, but looks like no news of swarm of interview letters yet.

The only person to get the IV letter was Mumbaicar with PD March 21. Looks like next batch fpr April 1-15 PD will be sent out end of october.:(
 
punk said:
I expected a lot of interview letters for April priority dates, but looks like no news of swarm of interview letters yet.

The only person to get the IV letter was Mumbaicar with PD March 21. Looks like next batch fpr April 1-15 PD will be sent out end of october.:(
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I will get mine (PD 4/13) early next month if I am lucky, otherwise, it should be mid Nov.
Too bad that the days between PD and IL increased again.
 
Well San Jose Service Center ....

ahsieh said:
Yeah, I think I will get mine (PD 4/13) early next month if I am lucky, otherwise, it should be mid Nov.
Too bad that the days between PD and IL increased again.
Click to expand...

What else you expect from San Jose Service center huh?

I heard this from a reliable source .. unfortunately the San Jose office had to lay off a bunch of officers in the Citizenship Unit due to budget cuts in USCIS. They are now backlogged.

My worry is with Holiday Season coming up soon it might be very well next year!

But as always hope for the best!

Later,
bKarth

_____________
04/17/07: FedExed
04/19/07: Received
04/19/07: Priority Date
04/20/07: Notice Date
05/10/07: FP Notice
06/14/07: FP Appt and Done
??/??/??: Interview
??/??/??: Oath
 
I wonder where our money is going. With the fee increase, and surge of application prior to it, I thought they should have plenty of funds. Anyway let's hope to get the IV date in Jan/Feb 2008 :(:mad:
 
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Need your expert advise PLEASE!

I am waiting for IL and let say (looks like) interview schdule for January, 08.
My question: can I go to India in December and come back before Interview and attend the interview in time, is it any problem? My india trip is very important and I am going only myself, not with family, they will be here.
I have heard after applying US citizenship leaving USA is not good idea, is it true?

Please advise as so many real experts are here... thanks in advance.

04/04/07: Prority Mail
04/09/07: Received
04/09/07: Priority Date
05/07/07: Notice Date
05/07/07: FP Notice
06/09/07: FP Appt and Done
11/23/07: Interview Letter
01/01/08: IL appointment
??/??/??: Oath
 
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Yup you can, IO asks for it during interview anyway. In such case he will write details of this trip on your N400 during the interview. The only problem is reschudling interview because of the trip is a BAD idea.
 
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