Do they take your green card at the citizenship test? PLEASE HELP!!!!

[Shannon and Olga 0]

My wife is taking her citizenship test and interview tomorrow - we are also leaving on vacation on Thursday. Do they take your green card when you take the citizenship test? We need it to get back in the country!!!!

[HeatDeath 430]

My understanding is that they don't take it until the oath ceremony.

[aleful 1,905]

ditto,

they take away the GC at the oath ceremony because they will give you the Naturalization Certificate at the end. You are not a LPR anymore after the Oath Ceremony, you don't need it anymore because you are now a USC.

[NickD 203]

They do not take anything you bring in with you, especially your green card and any original documents, if they need something, they will make copies of it.

[Shannon and Olga 0]

Finally got ahold of USCIS - here is the lowdown:

Some people are getting sworn in same day - if so they take your green card. However, it is optional to get sworn in same day. Otherwise, you get it taken at your oath ceremony.

[NickD 203]

Still don't take your green card from you at your interview, but do during your oath ceremony, but then you walk out with a USC certificate. Is nice when you have your oath ceremony the same day and not have to wait months like a lot of people do.

But then you cannot leave the country with your US certificate and come back, like you could with your green card and foreign passport, you have to get a US passport first if you are planning on coming back.

After all the excitement of me wife getting her US certificate, when we got back in her car, her first comment was, if anything happens to my mom, I cannot visit her. But then after she got her US passport, besides maintaining that, we also learned she still has to maintain her Venezuelan passport to visit her son and her Colombian passport to visit her mom. So instead of maintaining two passports, we now have to maintain three passports.

Having second thoughts, maybe we were better off when she was just a LPR. She is not a USC like a natural born one, all because of that stupid place of birth on her passports and if your home country insists on you have a passport to enter your country, you will be in the same boat as we.

[JoeCanuk 3]

Maybe your wife could give up her other citizenship. I don't know. Really, how hard is it to hold onto three passports?

[NickD 203]

Maybe your wife could give up her other citizenship. I don't know. Really, how hard is it to hold onto three passports?

Was more my intent to prepare the OP what's going to happen, with the interview tomorrow, and if they have the oath ceremony, no way could they leave the day after. They could request to postpone the oath ceremony until they return. His wife is free to travel now with a foreign passport and a LPR card, but not with a foreign passport and a USC certificate. There are a dozen Department of State service centers in the more major cities of the US, but besides showing your plane tickets within two weeks, you have to make an appointment first, just can't pop in unless it's a major emergency. But that is only if you live in a city where they have these service centers, we don't have that luxury or misfortune, however you want to view it. Would take us longer to go to Chicago than to China, with international travel have to show up at your airport three hours early so you can wait in long lines. Not good with only 24 hours in a day.

First thing is to pass the interview, and if one of the few field offices that does have same day oath, postpone it until you come back. Most of us buy nonrefundable tickets and why not, the refundable tickets cost twice as much. Really not good to plan for any trips when dealing with the USCIS.

Won't do my wife any good to renounce her citizenship, with her country of birth on her US passport, that is all they need to see to demand it.