Lynkali

My husband had his citizenship interview today and passed! Five-year rule at the San Diego office, and same-day oath so we are all done with USCIS! However, the interview was VERY stressful - the worst interview of our whole immigration process. The interview lasted almost a full hour! The problem mostly stemmed from a name mix-up in the background check, which we had no advance knowledge of: apparently there's some guy with the same name as my husband working in a neighboring city in the Martial Arts field, and the interviewing officer spent a long time trying to trick my husband (who does not work at all) that he was that guy, or that he was trained in military/martial arts. That led to lots of probing questions about our finances (which are very normal and nothing out of the ordinary) and some attempts to sort-of bully or trick my husband regarding his lack of martial arts training! In the end, it all worked out - and in retrospect is kind of funny, once we googled the guy with the same name and figured out who they thought my husband was - but during the interview itself, my husband felt really stressed-out ... because how do you prove you're not that guy? Other than that issue, the civics test was easy (although they did ask one of the harder questions, who was President during WWI) - but my husband answered all six correctly so no problems there, and of course English test no issues. My advice to anyone with a slightly common foreign name is to Google your name thoroughly - if my husband had known in advance that he had a doppelganger in a military-adjacent area, he would have been able to explain/answer much more easily and been more relaxed. Other than that, no complaints and we're REALLY glad to be done with the process!

We weren't expecting anything to happen in this week between Christmas and New Years, assuming everyone at USCIS was taking a break ... but I randomly decided to check our status on the web page this morning, and amazingly, INTERVIEW IS SCHEDULED! Interview scheduled for February 13 in San Diego, notice mailed 12/28 (two days ago). Regular 5-year filer. Even though we signed up for text and email notifications, we didn't get any sort of notification - I just happened to check the site this morning! Given San Diego is one of the slower offices, I'm quite happy, I was expecting more like April or so. Yay!

I had the same issue about 12 hours ago (late Monday night) and it wouldn't send the code at all, even by morning it had not sent anything. But I tried just an hour ago and it sent the code right away, as it usually does. I wouldn't worry - I think their 'send code' feature is malfunctioning sometimes, but it does work sometimes! Try again in a few hours, I'd suggest.

Still on "case is being actively reviewed" for us, no change since a few hours after originally filing (on Sept 14). San Diego field office, I expect a fairly long wait but hopefully get an interview by March or so! We can wait, it's still better than the initial wait we had to get the K-1 visa back in 2012-13! I only check the online status about once a week since I'm not really expecting an interview for another month or two.

I don't think the USCIS site will show the field office until closer to the interview - could be wrong! But even with "actively reviewing" status, my bio reuse letter says the service center is NBC. I'm sure we'll be at the San Diego office for the interview, but I'm not sure the site will say that until the interview is scheduled. Am I right?

An hour later, and the Case Status has updated already! "Case Is Being Actively Reviewed By USCIS" now, about an hour after Biometrics Reuse notification. Yippee! Edited to add: the processing time also changed, it originally said 16 months when first filed, now two hours later it says 9 months.

Oh, wow, I wasn't really expecting the biometrics to be re-used, since he last did them in 2015! I'm surprised, but sure enough - Biometrics Reuse Notice is there, along with Receipt Notice. Thanks for prompting me to check!

My husband just filed n-400 today. Five-year rule since he's been a resident since 2014 (and ROC was 2016). Happily surprised at the new online filing system, and we only uploaded the required documents (green card, marriage certificate) plus five years of tax transcripts. Acceptance page said "16 months" for completion but based on what I see here on VisaJourney, we're hoping/expecting more like 8 months. We'll see!