N400 Seattle (merged)

[trandy 5]

I sympathize with everyone's delay. Here's my story so far. I feel like I'm literally the only one who's experienced this...

 

- Filed Nov 2018. Interview Jan 13th 2020.

- Passed the interview but was asked for tax info which I didn't have on me. 

- Was told I'd receive a 'request for info' document N-14 in 10 days.

- After 20 days of not receiving said document I mailed in my tax info anyway.

- After 30 days from interview of not hearing anything I called USCIS who said basically I'm stuck BACK in the 'typical processing times' endless journey of death before I can officially call up and ask for help.

 

But what's messed up is, my wife and I are planning on moving back home to the UK and have been for quite some time.

She's been away so long that her visa had expired and we had to go through arduous lengths to have it reactivated. When it gets reactivated, they give you a window of time to go back. So it's now a race against the clock. Will I get my citizenship in time?

 

Apparently some people are just handed the N-14 at the interview! 

 

I can't even ask for advice on the forums coz no one has heard of this.

Edited February 13, 2020 by trandy

[py6 43]

2 hours ago, Dani N said:

Sorry guys, I forgot to share the update I got Senator Maria Cantwell. It seems like she contacted the USCIS directly. I filed N-400 on April 08, 2018 so it's almost 2 years for me now.. At this point, I have no energy to fight anymore... I don't have a lawyer and who knows, maybe I will receive something tomorrow, or 6 months from now. 

 

Thank you for contacting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on behalf of your constituent, ******, regarding his Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions of Residence, and his Form N-400, Application for Naturalization.

USCIS records confirm that Mr. *****'s Form I-751 is still pending interview scheduling. Per regulations, we cannot adjudicate the Form N-400 until the Form I-751 is adjudicated. Therefore, his Form N-400 also is still pending interview scheduling. USCIS realizes that your constituent is concerned about the progress of his cases. Please assure Mr. ****** that we are aware of your inquiry, and that his cases have not been forgotten. If he has not received a notice in 90 days, he is welcome to contact us again.

Mr. ***** may wish to visit the Seattle Field Office to receive a stamp in his passport or a temporary card, which denotes temporary evidence of lawful permanent resident status. To do so, Mr. ***** may make an InfoPass appointment. He will need to bring to the appointment the receipt notice for the forms and either his valid passport or two passport size photos. Please note: The Seattle Field Office no longer has same day appointments available. All InfoPass appointments must be made by calling the USCIS National Contact Center at 1-800-375-5283.

That's horrible 😔. You and Washingtonian both are from April 2018. Somehow you guys are severely delayed and other combo filers are already done. How is that okay? What is Seattle doing to specifically delaying your cases? They know yours is out of normal processing range. Every case they process within normal prosessing range, they know there are older cases out there waiting for adjudication. What are they doing? This doesn't seem innocent to me. This seems purposeful, intentional.

[Dani N 3]

7 hours ago, py6 said:

That's horrible 😔. You and Washingtonian both are from April 2018. Somehow you guys are severely delayed and other combo filers are already done. How is that okay? What is Seattle doing to specifically delaying your cases? They know yours is out of normal processing range. Every case they process within normal prosessing range, they know there are older cases out there waiting for adjudication. What are they doing? This doesn't seem innocent to me. This seems purposeful, intentional.

My guess is they forgot about my case so my hope is after the Senator contacted them, they went "oh ####### let's work on this case soon but pretend that we didn't forget" lol their response reminded me of a few people I work with who always say "yes yes I am working on this, D. I didn't forget, just got caught up with some other things"

We will never find out the reason behind it unfortunately, and there is not much we can do. One reason for delay could be because I transferred my case from Minneapolis last December. However, on my Infopass appointment, the officer assured me that it shouldn't delay my case at all. I filed combo because it was supposed to speed up I-751; definitely not the case in Seattle. 

I won't hire a lawyer at this point because I think I could receive an interview any day now (too naive maybe? I thought exact same thing a year ago hahahah). 

[washingtonian 2]

Mine's from June 2018 and i751 is from May 2017. I'll be back in the US by April and I'll consult a lawyer as soon as I get back. My only concern is whether I can file immediately for Writ of Mandamus since N400 is already outside of normal processing time or I have to wait for I751 (all offices) to expire as well which is around May or June I think. It's pointless to wait more than that, seems obvious that someone forgot about my case. 

[py6 43]

3 hours ago, washingtonian said:

Mine's from June 2018 and i751 is from May 2017. I'll be back in the US by April and I'll consult a lawyer as soon as I get back. My only concern is whether I can file immediately for Writ of Mandamus since N400 is already outside of normal processing time or I have to wait for I751 (all offices) to expire as well which is around May or June I think. It's pointless to wait more than that, seems obvious that someone forgot about my case. 

Did you do any inquiry on N400?

[JFH 12,190]

I’m planning to contact Maria Cantrell soon. Although my case is nowhere near as extreme as some I’ve seen here (especially the combo filers), I want you add my voice to this in the hope that squeaky wheel gets the grease. I filed in September 2019 and almost all of the filers on that thread are either citizens already or have interview appointments scheduled for the next 6-8 weeks. My estimated completion date is December 2020 (not a combo filer). 
 

So I was wondering why Seattle is so delayed? It’s not a few weeks behind other places. It’s a year or more. What has caused this? Have there been a lot of resignations from the staff there so they are understaffed? Poor management? Technical issues? Computer problems? I can’t believe the caseload is so much bigger than any of the other major cities such as New York, LA, Miami, Dallas, etc. I Googled “cities with the highest immigrant population” (assuming that this would give an indication of where the biggest caseloads would be) and Seattle ranks 42 in the country in terms of the percentage of the city population that was born overseas. And I would think that if we look at just green card holders then Seattle would be lower as many of the foreign-born people in the Seattle area are on H-1B visas or L-1 visas with the tech giants, so are not even eligible for citizenship. 
 

Does anyone have any insight into why Seattle is so far behind the rest of the country?

Edited February 15, 2020 by JFH

[py6 43]

22 hours ago, JFH said:

I’m planning to contact Maria Cantrell soon. Although my case is nowhere near as extreme as some I’ve seen here (especially the combo filers), I want you add my voice to this in the hope that squeaky wheel gets the grease. I filed in September 2019 and almost all of the filers on that thread are either citizens already or have interview appointments scheduled for the next 6-8 weeks. My estimated completion date is December 2020 (not a combo filer). 
 

So I was wondering why Seattle is so delayed? It’s not a few weeks behind other places. It’s a year or more. What has caused this? Have there been a lot of resignations from the staff there so they are understaffed? Poor management? Technical issues? Computer problems? I can’t believe the caseload is so much bigger than any of the other major cities such as New York, LA, Miami, Dallas, etc. I Googled “cities with the highest immigrant population” (assuming that this would give an indication of where the biggest caseloads would be) and Seattle ranks 42 in the country in terms of the percentage of the city population that was born overseas. And I would think that if we look at just green card holders then Seattle would be lower as many of the foreign-born people in the Seattle area are on H-1B visas or L-1 visas with the tech giants, so are not even eligible for citizenship. 
 

Does anyone have any insight into why Seattle is so far behind the rest of the country?

I would like to ask the same question actually.

 

I'd like to add that based on quarterly reports from USCIS, Seattle is not processing N400 applications fast enough. Each quarter we have about 4500 people applying for naturalization. Seattle on average processes 3000 applications per quarter. So the backlog in Seattle is not being reduced. Seattle's backlog hovers between 18000 to 22000 for just N400. In a recent quarter, Seattle processed 2000 cases, got 4500 cases. And the backlog has been building up non-stop. So what they did was that they dumped about 1000+ to Yakima, 4000+ to Portland. As a result Portland's backlog jumped from 4000 to about 8500, while their processing speed is very close to that of Seattle and they don't receive that many from their own area so their wait time is much shorter. So some people get lucky if their cases are transferred to Portland. But this also shows how bad the situation in Seattle is and how stubborn the Seattle office is. They are not solving the issue. They are not even facing it. They are simply dumping cases to Portland and Yakima and hoping that one day this increased volume of N400 will reduce back to before 2016. But what if it doesnt go back down? Right now it just doesn't look like the backlog is going to drop unless Seattle office hires more people. But that's not happening. They are not getting more people to bring down the backlog.  

 

One interesting fact, in 2007 there was a even bigger spike for N400 applications resulting a case buildup of 1.4 million. Within 2 years, the backlog was reduced to less than 250,000 under Obama administration. 

[JFH 12,190]

Thank you for the facts and figures. Where can we see how many applications each office receives and how many are processed? 
 

It’s ridiculous. I do know of someone who went to live in Buffalo, NY for the required three-month period of residency to be able to file there, filed N-400 through Buffalo and was done and a citizen and then petitioned for his parents in less time than it would have taken to go through the N-400 process on Seattle. 

[arnab221 29]

17 hours ago, JFH said:

Thank you for the facts and figures. Where can we see how many applications each office receives and how many are processed? 
 

It’s ridiculous. I do know of someone who went to live in Buffalo, NY for the required three-month period of residency to be able to file there, filed N-400 through Buffalo and was done and a citizen and then petitioned for his parents in less time than it would have taken to go through the N-400 process on Seattle. 

USCIS publishes its performance data periodically in the Immigration and Citizenship data page. 

 

If you search in the form type field by Naturalization(N400) you will see that they have published data for July 2019 to September 2019 (FYQ4) and Seattle data exists in this chart. I have attached a screenshot below for easier consumption .The data shows civilian naturalizations and Military naturalizations .

 

It shows that the backlog Seattle has a total backlog of 18805 ending September 2019 .

Spokane : 434

Yakima : 1924 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by arnab221

[arnab221 29]

If you look into the older data from USCIS for April 1 - June 30, 2019 , the backlog is at 16947 . So between Q3 and Q4 , the reported net Seattle backlog has increased from 16947 to 18805( around 2000) . 

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by arnab221

[py6 43]

12 hours ago, arnab221 said:

If you look into the older data from USCIS for April 1 - June 30, 2019 , the backlog is at 16947 . So between Q3 and Q4 , the reported net Seattle backlog has increased from 16947 to 18805( around 2000) . 

 

Also look at Yakima and Portland offices. Yakima has 1924 because Seattle dumped close to 1500 to Yakima. If they don't dump the wait in Seattle would be much worse. And we would be talking about several years for N400.

[trandy 5]

I have a question for everyone. Is this delay causing interruptions in your lives?

 

Like for me I had planned to move back home as my mother is old and needs assistance (recently had a fall and broke her ankle in two places, she's 76 and has osteoporosis). My US wife has lost bother her parents and basically we only have her left so want to spend time with her. So it's kind of a humanitarian issue.

Edited February 18, 2020 by trandy

[py6 43]

	Seattle In	Seattle Out	Seattle Queue	Oregon Que	Yakima Que
2018Q1	3813	3020	16053	5132	891
2018Q2	4750	2382	18464	4850	722
2018Q3	4288	2335	20502	4377	801
2018Q4	4417	3523	21431	4887	688
2019Q1	4195	5060	20599	5187	748
2019Q2	4049	2020	22673	4933	647
2019Q3	4280	4571*	16802	8575	2087
2019Q4	4603	2812	18639	7626	1924

*2019Q3 Seattle Out does not include dumped cases (3165 to Portland and 1402 to Yakima).

 

Average Seattle N400 case processing speed = 3215 cases/quarter

 

I joined the queue at the beginning of Q4 2018, with a queue of 20502, my estimated wait time based on the data above is slightly over 6 quarters, or 19 months. That would mean May of 2020.

 

The MyUSCIS website projection of estimated completion time was Dec 2019 – Jan 2020.

 

As to why some combo filers from Oct 2018 finished in Dec 2019, I have no idea.

[py6 43]

2 hours ago, trandy said:

I have a question for everyone. Is this delay causing interruptions in your lives?

 

Like for me I had planned to move back home as my mother is old and needs assistance (recently had a fall and broke her ankle in two places, she's 76 and has osteoporosis). My US wife has lost bother her parents and basically we only have her left so want to spend time with her. So it's kind of a humanitarian issue.

 

Yes. Multiple trips interrupted. Missed a flight back. Family planned to visit me this Summer but it's on hold. More problems to come if it drags into this Summer.

[py6 43]

All other offices with similar backlog volumes to Seattle have higher processing speeds, meaning faster turn-over rate. That's why offices like San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas have shorter wait times.  Seattle's backlog might be smaller than offices such as Dallas (27000). But at a rate of nearly 11000 cases per quarter, people in Dallas wait much shorter to finish their N400s.

Edited February 19, 2020 by py6