Remote oath ceremonies?

[bing10 114]

18 hours ago, N400NYC said:

My oath ceremony was the last one held in NYC - Friday March 13th - before everything shutdown.

 

It was intentionally brief and "stripped down" - guests could not participate, there were no extra speeches, and no photos in the auditorium afterwards. 

 

But we are definitely not 6 feet away from each other and I can't imagine a similar oath ceremony (with 100 people in it) being conducted in the near future. 

 

I'm glad you were able to get in just before the shut-down.

 

As you say, I just don't see how they will be able to re-start regular oath ceremonies until there is a vaccine, particularly in places like NYC where there are a massive number of applicants. Interviews could potentially be conducted with a reasonable amount of social distancing, but they still need to work out a new way of doing oaths for the future (be it significantly fewer people at a time, online or some other way) , otherwise we could be looking at a wait of 1+ years after the interview and an ever increasing backlog to clear.

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by bing10

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

3 minutes ago, bing10 said:

 

I'm glad you were able to get in just before the shut-down.

 

As you say, I just don't see how they will be able to re-start regular oath ceremonies until there is a vaccine, particularly in places like NYC where there are a massive number of applicants. Interviews could potentially be conducted with a reasonable amount of social distancing, but they still need to work out a new way of doing oaths for the future (be it significantly fewer people at a time, online or some other way) , otherwise we could be looking at a wait of 1+ years after the interview and an ever increasing backlog to clear.

 

I know that here under the SF FO, where they typically have 2 large ceremonies (on the same day) once a month, they were talking about moving to smaller but more frequent ceremonies. They used to have an option of same day oath-taking (no ceremony) for those who were approved on the spot, and that might get resurrected as an option too. 

[bing10 114]

1 hour ago, SusieQQQ said:

I know that here under the SF FO, where they typically have 2 large ceremonies (on the same day) once a month, they were talking about moving to smaller but more frequent ceremonies. They used to have an option of same day oath-taking (no ceremony) for those who were approved on the spot, and that might get resurrected as an option too. 

 

That will likely work in areas with fewer people, but somewhere like NYC I still think it would still be tough.

 

In 2017 there were 62,000 naturalizations in NYC, so even if you started doing oath ceremonies 5 days a week, that's still 238/day. Likely too many for effective social distancing, unless you started doing 4 or 5 sessions a day.

 

Performing the oath immediately after an approved interview would be one way I can see it working though.

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

38 minutes ago, bing10 said:

 

That will likely work in areas with fewer people, but somewhere like NYC I still think it would still be tough.

 

In 2017 there were 62,000 naturalizations in NYC, so even if you started doing oath ceremonies 5 days a week, that's still 238/day. Likely too many for effective social distancing, unless you started doing 4 or 5 sessions a day.

 

Performing the oath immediately after an approved interview would be one way I can see it working though.

If we’re still social distancing a year from now then yeah expect huge delays, no other way around it. Maybe yankee stadium will give them cheap space for lots of people to keep distance seeing as there won’t be any ball games.

 

btw SF typically naturalizes 1500 per ceremony (around same amount of spectators) so it’s hardly small ceremonies. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by SusieQQQ

[bing10 114]

Maybe this is an example for how it could work!

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/historic-air-force-graduation-ceremony-off-masks-social/story?id=70226758

 

 

[Amazinggrace123 20]

45 minutes ago, bing10 said:

Maybe this is an example for how it could work!

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/historic-air-force-graduation-ceremony-off-masks-social/story?id=70226758

 

 

How about interview? Interview outside 

[bing10 114]

6 hours ago, Amazinggrace123 said:

How about interview? Interview outside 

 

I would think an interview is relatively easy to perform with social distancing. Wearing a mask and being 6 feet apart in the interview room?

[Amazinggrace123 20]

10 minutes ago, bing10 said:

 

I would think an interview is relatively easy to perform with social distancing. Wearing a mask and being 6 feet apart in the interview room?

hope uscis will make an appointment or action  ASAP，No matter how to do it. Its just wasting the time right now.

[millefleur 5,047]

29 minutes ago, bing10 said:

 

I would think an interview is relatively easy to perform with social distancing. Wearing a mask and being 6 feet apart in the interview room?

At the Embassies, the IO is actually behind glass. I was surprized during the ROC interview we had that this was not the case here stateside - the interview was held in an open office with no barrier between us and the IO. Maybe the barrier thing could be something in handy here regarding the virus (in addition to whatever safety factors it serves).