Postponing becoming a US citizen

[KaashParinda 7]

KP, sanjose does not do same day oath, Oath ceremony is held in campbell heritage theater once or twice a month. For October it is scheduled on 23rd. I guess depends on how many people are inline for interview/oath. I think the best option is to complete your interview (yours should be around December 6 -10)and then request the I/O to schedule your oath in Jan/Feb. You could even request to postpone the interview, my preference would be oath...

grs,

Looks like San Jose schedules interview about 6 weeks after fingerprinting. That would be early Dec for us. So a Dec 6-10 oath is very possible. We will ask that it be scheduled for after we return in late January. Thanks for the info on Oath cermonies twice a month. That's new info I did not know.

KP

[KaashParinda 7]

Update as of 12/11/13

Requested towards end of the interview, to the interviewing officer, plus a letter, along with flight reservations that the oath is scheduled after we return. Officer wrote it down in red and highlighted it (on the N-400, I think) and kept the letter. He refused to sign a copy stating that he received the letter. So now we wait and see if when she gets scheduled.

Fingers crossed that it will work out!

KP

[Songer 1]

Best bet is to postpone the trip. The oath should only be cancelled in a life or death matter. A simple trip is not a good reason to postpone the oath as this could set your wife back for a long time as she would be re-entered in the system. Many people have been delayed for a long time, others have even been lost in the system and have taken them a long time to get another oath.

@Warlord, I'm in a similar situation to the OP and was curious if these cases of people postponing their interview/oath getting "delayed or lost in the system" are actually verified or just urban myths.

[KaashParinda 7]

Hi warlord, Songer and others regarding your comments below:

IMHO, its definitely an urban myth. My wife, by letter and in person at the interview said that we would be out of country until Jan 21 and requested an interview thereafter. The officer took the info, highlighted the dates. Yesterday, the 21st, the day we returned back to the US, we got the following message:

"On January 21, 2014, we scheduled you for your oath ceremony and sent a notice providing the date, time, and location. If you move prior to the scheduled ceremony, please use our Change of Address online tool to update your case with your new address or call our customer service center at 1-800-375-5283."

Either San Jose is doing something very right or other offices where these requests got lost were the ones reported by others.

warlord, on 15 Oct 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

Best bet is to postpone the trip. The oath should only be cancelled in a life or death matter. A simple trip is not a good reason to postpone the oath as this could set your wife back for a long time as she would be re-entered in the system. Many people have been delayed for a long time, others have even been lost in the system and have taken them a long time to get another oath.

@Warlord, I'm in a similar situation to the OP and was curious if these cases of people postponing their interview/oath getting "delayed or lost in the system" are actually verified or just urban myths.

[warlord 73]

Hi warlord, Songer and others regarding your comments below:

IMHO, its definitely an urban myth. My wife, by letter and in person at the interview said that we would be out of country until Jan 21 and requested an interview thereafter. The officer took the info, highlighted the dates. Yesterday, the 21st, the day we returned back to the US, we got the following message:

"On January 21, 2014, we scheduled you for your oath ceremony and sent a notice providing the date, time, and location. If you move prior to the scheduled ceremony, please use our Change of Address online tool to update your case with your new address or call our customer service center at 1-800-375-5283."

Either San Jose is doing something very right or other offices where these requests got lost were the ones reported by others.

warlord, on 15 Oct 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

@Warlord, I'm in a similar situation to the OP and was curious if these cases of people postponing their interview/oath getting "delayed or lost in the system" are actually verified or just urban myths.

There have been quite a few on this board alone in the past that have talked about the hassles they had to go through postponing the oath. Not everyone will have issues, but a large number have encountered difficulties especially with oath ceremonies that aren't that frequent. Remember you're pretty much being sent to the bottom of the oath queue and this is the USCIS computer system you have been having to deal with for so long. Do you really want to deal with that any further?

Remember they will chose when your oath date is, you do not. So you could get it soon or you could get it a long time down the road or as some have experienced they were lost in the system once again.

The golden rule has always been, only postpone it if it's a life and death situation. After all isn't this why most people moved to the US for and have been wanting? That should take priority over anything at this time if you have filed off the N-400. If not, then why not wait until you don't have anything else planned for the next few months?

[KaashParinda 7]

There have been quite a few on this board alone in the past that have talked about the hassles they had to go through postponing the oath. Not everyone will have issues, but a large number have encountered difficulties especially with oath ceremonies that aren't that frequent. Remember you're pretty much being sent to the bottom of the oath queue and this is the USCIS computer system you have been having to deal with for so long. Do you really want to deal with that any further?

Remember they will chose when your oath date is, you do not. So you could get it soon or you could get it a long time down the road or as some have experienced they were lost in the system once again.

The golden rule has always been, only postpone it if it's a life and death situation. After all isn't this why most people moved to the US for and have been wanting? That should take priority over anything at this time if you have filed off the N-400. If not, then why not wait until you don't have anything else planned for the next few months?

Warlord, I both agree and disagree with you.

1. On the point on waiting till nothing planned in the next 6 months and then applying. Yes, that's a prudent path. I just didn't expect that San Jose will be that efficient. We expected that we will be dealing with in Feb or March well after your return/

2. Your point about being sent to the bottom of queue didn't hold true for us. They scheduled it on the day we returned back to the US. We documented our plans by letter and handed it to the interviewing officer.

3. Your assume far to much. People have PR cards for decades before deciding to become a citizen. Relax. Citizenship is not a life or death thing if you have a long-term (10 year) valid PR card. At the most its a huge hassle to start again and an additional cost of $700. The cost of changing flights and vacation was a much more expensive proposition for us. Your golden rule is not that golden. There are always exceptions.The real golden rule is not to sit and do nothing but to document, document, document...requests and make sure you take a proactive approach and not expect things to fall into place.

Having said all that, USCIS is famous for losing cases. So I wouldn't do it unless the benefits outweigh the consequences. We were traveling with a kid, and its been several years since we returned to the country of our birth. Its not so simple to change things. All I am saying is that one can be more nuanced in their response to a situation. Each situation is unique.

Best, KP

[warlord 73]

Warlord, I both agree and disagree with you.

1. On the point on waiting till nothing planned in the next 6 months and then applying. Yes, that's a prudent path. I just didn't expect that San Jose will be that efficient. We expected that we will be dealing with in Feb or March well after your return/

2. Your point about being sent to the bottom of queue didn't hold true for us. They scheduled it on the day we returned back to the US. We documented our plans by letter and handed it to the interviewing officer.

3. Your assume far to much. People have PR cards for decades before deciding to become a citizen. Relax. Citizenship is not a life or death thing if you have a long-term (10 year) valid PR card. At the most its a huge hassle to start again and an additional cost of $700. The cost of changing flights and vacation was a much more expensive proposition for us. Your golden rule is not that golden. There are always exceptions.The real golden rule is not to sit and do nothing but to document, document, document...requests and make sure you take a proactive approach and not expect things to fall into place.

Having said all that, USCIS is famous for losing cases. So I wouldn't do it unless the benefits outweigh the consequences. We were traveling with a kid, and its been several years since we returned to the country of our birth. Its not so simple to change things. All I am saying is that one can be more nuanced in their response to a situation. Each situation is unique.

Best, KP

However you are still missing the point and I wasn't the one that made the "Golden Rule", that has always been the rule that people have always gone by for this situation. Some people do luck out, others do not. Again, you are playing roulette with the system that you've been in for a long time, do you really want to test out your luck and not know? And for many $700 to just throw away isn't an easy thing to do.

But as I said, some people have managed to do this with little or no problems, others have not been so lucky.

And I'm not assuming anything, I'm just putting out what the general consensus is on postponing the oath and based on many of the people just on this one board alone that have had issues let alone numerous other places as well.

If you want to test it out and take that chance then by all means go through and hope it works out, if not, then you are at least aware of what might happen. Many people don't think about the possible ramifications until it's too late.

And yes, you will find this all over the place including on this board, that "Only postpone the oath if it's a matter of life and death, everything else can wait". Of course you don't have to take that literally, but there is a reason that's always been the moto...

[Songer 1]

For those who came across this thread because they have a similar issue/question, a fellow VJ member posted some great links to actual people's experiences with this. Of course, your results will vary, but at least you have actual data to use. Look at this Thread, Post #4.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/472784-examples-of-postponingrescheduling-interviews/

[KaashParinda 7]

For those who came across this thread because they have a similar issue/question, a fellow VJ member posted some great links to actual people's experiences with this. Of course, your results will vary, but at least you have actual data to use. Look at this Thread, Post #4.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/472784-examples-of-postponingrescheduling-interviews/

Nice documentation. Sounds like experiences wary by who they encounter and definitely which office. It was a calculated decision on our part as postponing the trip was not an option for a variety of reasons. It worked out for us. Based on this, I would say, don't mess with the USCIS scheduling if you possibly can (nothing new here); I do maintain that there are times when you have to take a chance, especially if you have a 10 year green card and you can continue to go about your life (except that you can't vote)... etc.

Best, KP

[carocaro 22]

I am one of those people who had to rebook my interview date as I had planned and paid for a three week trip to Asia on non refundable ticket five months earlier, assuming everything would be done with USCIS by then. Wrong. lol I sent a response explaining situation and got a new date 3 weeks after I get back.

Caro

[Songer 1]

I am one of those people who had to rebook my interview date as I had planned and paid for a three week trip to Asia on non refundable ticket five months earlier, assuming everything would be done with USCIS by then. Wrong. lol I sent a response explaining situation and got a new date 3 weeks after I get back.

Caro

Thanks Caro. Great data point. From your signature, it looks like your local office does everything much quicker. The NYC (Manhattan) office took 3.5 months after Biometrics to send us an interview date, so we assumed it would take a comparable period of time to reschedule an interview date.