Oath - do we need to take all the papers again?

[FormerBrit 0]

Hello,

I have my oath next week and just wanted to check what I take...do I just take my GC like the letter says, or do I need to take all the papers, forms, etc... again?

Thank you!

Kiki

Edited September 19, 2009 by KikiDoug

[Kathryn41 3,205]

You need to take your 10 year green card and if you have any other still valid immigration documents like a Travel Document then you would bring those. If you have expired documents like previous green cards, APs and EADs you don't need to bring those. Fill out the questions on your form before you arrive and sign the form. They will go over it with you. During the ceremony at some time you will hand in your green card and other still valid immigration documents and receive your Certificate of Citizenship. Congratulations! Enjoy your ceremony.

[NickD 202]

You need to take your 10 year green card and if you have any other still valid immigration documents like a Travel Document then you would bring those. If you have expired documents like previous green cards, APs and EADs you don't need to bring those. Fill out the questions on your form before you arrive and sign the form. They will go over it with you. During the ceremony at some time you will hand in your green card and other still valid immigration documents and receive your Certificate of Citizenship. Congratulations! Enjoy your ceremony.

From those questions on the back, if nothing has changed like death, trips outside of the USA over 24 hours, you do not need to bring evidence of that, should bring your passport if you took a trip after your interview. Best to sign the back of the sheet in front of the officer and the place of signing will be in the city your field office is located in. But you can check off the questions before hand. They will take your oath letter and ten year card, and you will leave with your certificate, good luck.

[FormerBrit 0]

Thank you!

[internetkafe 0]

You need to take your 10 year green card and if you have any other still valid immigration documents like a Travel Document then you would bring those. If you have expired documents like previous green cards, APs and EADs you don't need to bring those. Fill out the questions on your form before you arrive and sign the form. They will go over it with you. During the ceremony at some time you will hand in your green card and other still valid immigration documents and receive your Certificate of Citizenship. Congratulations! Enjoy your ceremony.

From those questions on the back, if nothing has changed like death, trips outside of the USA over 24 hours, you do not need to bring evidence of that, should bring your passport if you took a trip after your interview. Best to sign the back of the sheet in front of the officer and the place of signing will be in the city your field office is located in. But you can check off the questions before hand. They will take your oath letter and ten year card, and you will leave with your certificate, good luck.

Will they issue a prorated refund for the 10 year green cards they take back? Say, if 8-9 years left before they expire...

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You need to take your 10 year green card and if you have any other still valid immigration documents like a Travel Document then you would bring those. If you have expired documents like previous green cards, APs and EADs you don't need to bring those. Fill out the questions on your form before you arrive and sign the form. They will go over it with you. During the ceremony at some time you will hand in your green card and other still valid immigration documents and receive your Certificate of Citizenship. Congratulations! Enjoy your ceremony.

From those questions on the back, if nothing has changed like death, trips outside of the USA over 24 hours, you do not need to bring evidence of that, should bring your passport if you took a trip after your interview. Best to sign the back of the sheet in front of the officer and the place of signing will be in the city your field office is located in. But you can check off the questions before hand. They will take your oath letter and ten year card, and you will leave with your certificate, good luck.

Will they issue a prorated refund for the 10 year green cards they take back? Say, if 8-9 years left before they expire...

You're kidding, right?

[lissa04 3]

Sorry not a chance in hell!!!! It would be nice though.

[jsnearline 2]

Will they issue a prorated refund for the 10 year green cards they take back? Say, if 8-9 years left before they expire...

No, they won't and why should they? Applying for citizenship now is entirely your choice. If you had wanted to get the full value of your green card, you could have waited until it was about a year away from expiration before applying for naturalization.

[NickD 202]

Sorry not a chance in hell!!!! It would be nice though.

With the immigration act of 1986, marriage was just about the only open door left to bring people illegally here legally, so they sure got though. Found that only an average of 140,000 I-751's were processed each year, hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 20 million illegals here now, many due to overstayed I-94's. Apparently they don't follow through on those, but sure follow through on conditional green cards. Perhaps we could have ignored the I-751 in terms of the federal government, it wasn't them getting on our case to renew our conditional green card, it was us getting on their butts to get that card renewed. It was our state that really cracked down by threatening to fine my wife's employer $16,000.00 for the first offense if her card wasn't current and refusing to renew her drivers' license, even with the one year extension notice. Her leaving the country to visit her mom was would be out of the question as well, could leave, but couldn't come back until that ten year card came in.

INS did report some odd two million marriages between 1986 and 1988 and rather than cracking down on these marriages, elected not only to make the requirements for immigration a hell of a lot stricter, but started the conditional green card. Calling it a permanent resident card was rather silly, and at the same time, the permanent resident card that was for life was also reduced to ten years.

One way to get around that conditional card, would be to marry your spouse, then ship them back to their home country for a couple of years, a hell of a way to start off marriage life. Then try to file a joint tax return when your spouse is not even a household member, get you one way or the other. That conditional phase we went through was by far our worse relationship with the USCIS, and our application was sent in precisely 90 days to the second before her conditional card would have expired. It was like filing that application and gathering tons of evidence to our relationship then tossing it in the trash can, nothing, nothing, nothing. But they did cash the check the day after.

They can keep the money we paid for the fee, we got seven weeks use out of the 520 weeks duration of that card, but sure would be nice to get a refund on all the extra money and time we spent trying to find out what in the hell they did with our application, learned it was misplaced and forgotten with all that shifting around the USCIS was trying to do to reorganize. Very frustrating time for us and sure for the rest of you that experienced the same thing. So we applied for USC precisely 89 days before the 3rd anniversary, the 90th day was on a Sunday, and wouldn't dare send off the application on the Saturday before, because it could be rejected at 91 days.

If it wasn't for extensive delays in the AOS, daughter would have been well under 18 years of age and received her USC too, but was 18 and three months old when we could apply. So another 675 bucks and a bunch of chasing around all over the country is still ahead of us. They are very strict on their dates with no compensation for the long delays they impose.

So why do they make life so miserable for the legal people that apply, if they can learn that a marriage was fraud, why don't they just toss those people in jail and deport the illegal immigrant? But instead they treat everyone as being guilty of fraud until they go through great pains to prove themselves innocent.

Then they make you study the civics test to learn all about the US Constitution of this great country, and really make you wonder why the USCIS considers themselves exempt from the laws of this land. Just seems to be a major contradiction.

And why couldn't I as the sponsoring USC, also a veteran of a foreign war attend my wife's interview, if it's all about marriage, I should have been in with her. They could have either duct taped my big mouth shut or ask me to leave for those six questions, her IO wouldn't have been nearly that though on her if I was in there.

And what about fraud if there was fraud? Who is the true victim of fraud? The sponsoring USC is the true victim and get can really screwed in the process, but doesn't have much say in the matter. If the USCIS really wants to pick on illegals, they have some odd 20 million to chose from and why aren't they doing anything about those people?

In having to deal with the IRS, FAA, FCC, DOT, EPA, ERA, DOE, OSHA, and other government agencies, really got the impression that we are living in a very screwed up country, add the APA to that, in dealing with the USCIS and the DOS, kind of the straw that broke the camels back. Military service didn't help, had to take an oath to lay down my life for this country while working with defense contractors that were at no risk and really cleaning up in time of war. So don't pay attention to me, have a government induced negative attitude.

[antda 13]

With the immigration act of 1986, marriage was just about the only open door left to bring people illegally here legally, so they sure got though. Found that only an average of 140,000 I-751's were processed each year, hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 20 million illegals here now, many due to overstayed I-94's. Apparently they don't follow through on those, but sure follow through on conditional green cards. Perhaps we could have ignored the I-751 in terms of the federal government, it wasn't them getting on our case to renew our conditional green card, it was us getting on their butts to get that card renewed. It was our state that really cracked down by threatening to fine my wife's employer $16,000.00 for the first offense if her card wasn't current and refusing to renew her drivers' license, even with the one year extension notice. Her leaving the country to visit her mom was would be out of the question as well, could leave, but couldn't come back until that ten year card came in.

INS did report some odd two million marriages between 1986 and 1988 and rather than cracking down on these marriages, elected not only to make the requirements for immigration a hell of a lot stricter, but started the conditional green card. Calling it a permanent resident card was rather silly, and at the same time, the permanent resident card that was for life was also reduced to ten years.

One way to get around that conditional card, would be to marry your spouse, then ship them back to their home country for a couple of years, a hell of a way to start off marriage life. Then try to file a joint tax return when your spouse is not even a household member, get you one way or the other. That conditional phase we went through was by far our worse relationship with the USCIS, and our application was sent in precisely 90 days to the second before her conditional card would have expired. It was like filing that application and gathering tons of evidence to our relationship then tossing it in the trash can, nothing, nothing, nothing. But they did cash the check the day after.

They can keep the money we paid for the fee, we got seven weeks use out of the 520 weeks duration of that card, but sure would be nice to get a refund on all the extra money and time we spent trying to find out what in the hell they did with our application, learned it was misplaced and forgotten with all that shifting around the USCIS was trying to do to reorganize. Very frustrating time for us and sure for the rest of you that experienced the same thing. So we applied for USC precisely 89 days before the 3rd anniversary, the 90th day was on a Sunday, and wouldn't dare send off the application on the Saturday before, because it could be rejected at 91 days.

If it wasn't for extensive delays in the AOS, daughter would have been well under 18 years of age and received her USC too, but was 18 and three months old when we could apply. So another 675 bucks and a bunch of chasing around all over the country is still ahead of us. They are very strict on their dates with no compensation for the long delays they impose.

So why do they make life so miserable for the legal people that apply, if they can learn that a marriage was fraud, why don't they just toss those people in jail and deport the illegal immigrant? But instead they treat everyone as being guilty of fraud until they go through great pains to prove themselves innocent.

Then they make you study the civics test to learn all about the US Constitution of this great country, and really make you wonder why the USCIS considers themselves exempt from the laws of this land. Just seems to be a major contradiction.

And why couldn't I as the sponsoring USC, also a veteran of a foreign war attend my wife's interview, if it's all about marriage, I should have been in with her. They could have either duct taped my big mouth shut or ask me to leave for those six questions, her IO wouldn't have been nearly that though on her if I was in there.

And what about fraud if there was fraud? Who is the true victim of fraud? The sponsoring USC is the true victim and get can really screwed in the process, but doesn't have much say in the matter. If the USCIS really wants to pick on illegals, they have some odd 20 million to chose from and why aren't they doing anything about those people?

In having to deal with the IRS, FAA, FCC, DOT, EPA, ERA, DOE, OSHA, and other government agencies, really got the impression that we are living in a very screwed up country, add the APA to that, in dealing with the USCIS and the DOS, kind of the straw that broke the camels back. Military service didn't help, had to take an oath to lay down my life for this country while working with defense contractors that were at no risk and really cleaning up in time of war. So don't pay attention to me, have a government induced negative attitude.

NickD- Very well said, indeed!!!.... Likewise I feel the same way too about immigration fraud. It doesn't seem fair either, that just because there are "a few bad apples in the bunch" that the rest of us, who are in genuine and real marriages have to suffer through the immigration process, with lengthy delays and having to have extra expenses and whatnot...Definitely lots of contradictions, and incompetence in the immigration process..Unfortunate really, that immigration can't do more to crack down on fraud, and letting so many people get away with such! Oh well, no immigration and/or government system is perfect...Sigh...At least the USCIS is somewhat trying....(I hope anyways....maybe things will get better later....)

Will they issue a prorated refund for the 10 year green cards they take back? Say, if 8-9 years left before they expire...

To Everyone- Oh yeah..I definitely want a refund for my 10yr card too since I'm going for citizenship and never really got "full use" out of such..What a waste of time and money, indeed! lol....Won't see that happening anytime soon...wishful thinking...The least they could have done was to let us keep the card as a souvenier or something when we get citizenship, instead of having to give it back to them....doesn't seem fair that they should have such, since we paid for it already...not any use to them really too....lol....oh well...

Ant

Edited November 1, 2009 by Ant+D+A

[NickD 202]

Least we have the EAD and conditional cards as souvenirs, prorated, that EAD card cost us over a hundred bucks per month with a close second to the conditional card. Ten year card amortizes to about ten bucks per month, wife didn't want to part with it either, not for the money, but for the inconvenience in getting it. Best bargain is USC with no strings attached. Good for life.