BlueDevil

FINALLY, it's all done! I had my Naturalization ceremony a couple of days back, which went well. Best wishes to everyone who is still in process. Cheers!

No, I did not contact them since I didn't want it to trigger a ceremony date. I know that sounds strange, but I have an upcoming international trip in October I cannot miss and with the passport delays, it would jeopardize it. Such is my luck that I ended up getting scheduled in any case. I will have to get an urgent travel appointment for a passport after completing my oath. Hopefully, they will have an open appointment anywhere in the country. If I have to fly out to a different office from my local one in Atlanta so be it. Here is a link to the Eastern District of Tennessee oath ceremony schedule. They have recently updated the schedule to add more dates. Since you live in Chattanooga, you will likely get assigned to one of these dates. When did you have your interview? Knoxville has one of the larger ceremonies scheduled for October. Hopefully, you can get in on that one. 🤞 https://www.tned.uscourts.gov/sites/tned/files/natz_2023_updated.pdf

I finally received my Oath Ceremony Notice! Scheduled for September 29th. In a little over a month, this journey will FINALLY be over!

Congrats! Hope you get an oath ceremony date soon. I am still waiting for mine, and I had my interview back on Feb 14th! I can't imagine Tennessee is a hot spot for a lot of new N400 cases (unlike say CA, TX, NY, etc...) so I suspect my file has gotten lost on the shuffle. I don't want to open up a service request right now in case it results in my being assigned to a ceremony date next month. I have some upcoming international travel in late October and seeing the long delays to get passports I don't want to jeopardize the trip. I will likely submit a service request after I return in late November if I have not heard anything by then.

If you absolutely cannot make it to the ceremony, one option is to send the letter via courier. I'm pretty sure the mailing address is a physical address where you can courier the letter to. Will an international shipment be pricey? Likely so, but it beats the alternative. I might be in the same boat down the road myself. I have an important business trip I simply cannot miss and I'm hoping my oath ceremony does not get scheduled during the same time. Its not the end of the world if you miss one ceremony. Be prepared for a delay in getting the oath rescheduled if it came down to it. Now if you miss two in a row, that's bad news.

Hey everyone. I had my interview today and here is a recap. Note: I applied on the basis of the 5-year rule. TL;DR: I got approved! Yay! My appointment was at 7:35 am at the Nashville field office. I arrived there at 7 am and the parking lot was already quite busy. I went in at 7:20 and proceeded through airport-like security. The security officers were very nice; one said I looked quite spiffy. LOL! I was called up to a counter to get biometrics done and then sat in the waiting room. At 7:45, I was called in for my interview. The IO was pleasant but all business. There was no small talk whatsoever other than the initial "good morning." She asked me to remain standing, raise my right hand, and went over the standard oath. She asked for my permanent resident card and passport, looked them over, and then went over the interview process in brief. She asked if I was okay with doing the Civics test first, to which I said sure. Here are the six questions that she asked me, all of which I answered correctly. I was lucky to get quite straightforward questions. 1. Name one state that borders Canada. 2. What is the highest court in the US? 3. What happened at the Constitutional Convention? 4. Name one Native American tribe. 5. Why does the flag have 50 stars? 6. What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution? Reading test: Who elects the Congress Writing test: The people elect the Congress She then asked me some basic questions from the application - full name, address, occupation, my last trip outside the US, and what age I was when I first arrived. This last question almost gave me a panic attack. I first got to the US when I was 21, as a student, and did not start my immigration process until I was well past 26. So I know that selective service did not apply to me. But she still asked why I did not register for it. I told her I was on a student visa and had no idea at the time even what selective service was, let alone register for it. She seemed to buy that explanation and made some notes in the computer. She then told me that she had made some changes to my application, one of which was simply a job title update and the other was the selective service question, and asked me to verify the changes. It was then that I realized why she was asking about the selective service. I answered "No" to the question in the application since answering "Yes" would have taken me down the path of completing a statement etc... which did not apply to me. She changed that answer to "Yes" at the interview and we moved on. Just thought I'd mention this in case someone else also has this happen to them. From then, it was the standard yes/no questions and finally, she congratulated me saying that I was approved, and handed me the approval letter. Unfortunately, the center I was interviewed at stopped administering same-day oaths so I have to wait for that to be scheduled. I mentioned an upcoming out-of-country trip that I had planned months earlier and asked if she could make a note asking for the oath to be scheduled after my return. She was happy to do that and I saw her jot down my return date in the file. I am fully aware that that doesn't mean a whole lot since there is a good chance that the note gets ignored. I have already planned for that eventuality. 10 mins after leaving the building my case status was updated to "Oath Ceremony will be Scheduled." Best wishes to everyone who has an upcoming interview or waiting for one to be scheduled.

Thank you!!! That makes me feel a whole lot better. Yeah, I'm seeing the same here with USPS. All appointments are 4 weeks out and there is one solitary appointment that was available next week. @Mike E - to your point, when I say County Clerk, I mean the same office that issues motor vehicle registrations, marriage licenses etc. Perhaps not all County Clerk offices around the country offer passport services? Fortunately, mine is one of the listed centers for that. They have an online appointment system and I was able to snag an appointment.

Hello. Is there a huge difference in processing times when applying for a new passport at a USPS location vs County Clerk's office? Any other benefits/drawbacks between the two? I am going to be looking at a pretty tight timeline for getting my passport before I need to travel and the County Clerk has an appointment a week before USPS has any availability. I didn't want to rush and go to the County Clerk if, at the end of the day, USPS was more efficient. I see most folks applying through USPS so that made me a little nervous. Thanks!

Hello. I know I"m jumping the gun a little but I need to plan for the timing of the oath ceremony due to travel plans. My interview is scheduled for February 14, 2023. I am already booked for a business trip to my home country (India) from April 21 through May 26. Assuming my interview goes well and I get approved for naturalization, here are some potential dates for the oath ceremony taken from the State of Tennessee 2023 Naturalization Calender: February 16, 2023 (this might be too soon being only a couple of days after my interview). March 2, 2023 April 27, 2023 May 16, 2023 By some stroke of luck, if they schedule me for the Feb interview, I will likely have enough time to get my documents in order before the trip. However, in the event that they schedule me for either the March or April ceremonies, I'm afraid I will not have sufficient time after the ceremony to apply for my passport, and once I have that, apply for a tourist visa. So my question is: in my request to reschedule the oath ceremony, are we allowed to specify that we would like it to be scheduled after a certain date? Or do they just schedule it for the next available month, which could possibly be the very next month? If the former is possible, I should be okay since I can ask them for a date after my return, but if it is the latter, I am going to be in a bind. Thank you!

Yes, I did file online. The "estimated time of approval" is about the most worthless metric. When I first filed, it said 17 months, which went down to 7 months the very next day, then up to 9 months, which is where it stands even today after receiving my interview notice. Even the USCIS processing times website estimate is useless. For the Nashville office, which is where my interview will be held, the estimated time is listed as 17 months, with the caveat that 80% of the cases are processed within this time. The moral of the story - don't pay attention to any of the estimates and just keep your fingers crossed that your case progresses quickly. Judging from other submissions and updates across the various months in this forum, interviews are typically are being scheduled within 3-4 months in a vast majority of cases. I wish you the best for a speedy case resolution, but know that YMMV.

Just got the good news that my interview has been scheduled for February 14, 2023. Time to start studying! The end is in sight now.