Alekezam

Huh? Wrong. We filed the N-400 in 2023. On 1-4-2023 to be exact. You need to look at our timeline more carefully. We filed right at the tail end of the pandemic so it should be moving even faster now than it did then. Of course, there are a lot of different variables that could effect the process (country of origin, provided documents, how well you do your due diligence, etc.).

We're Houston based. Take a look at our timeline. From the time that we filed my wife's N400 to when she did the oath ceremony it took just over 4 months. It took only 3.5 months to get an interview from the point that we submitted the N400.

Just to add our recent personal experience. My wife received her new and first US passport about 3 months ago and we figured we would update her global entry information to include her new passport since her global entry was tied to her permanent residence on our return from our next international trip. Fast forward to now after having done 2 overseas trips, one to Romania and another to Thailand. Wanted to see what would happen when we got back and went thru Global Entry. Return from Romania, nothing, she went right thru no questions asked. Just got back from Thailand this past Sunday and same thing, no questions. We didn't bring the subject up either so..... We came into Houston both times where they use facial recognition for GE.

I just can't help but chuckle how all of the sudden it's crickets......if you get my drift. Anyhow, great news, good luck at the interview!

It took exactly 6 weeks and a day from the time we handed the application in at the post office to the time we received my wife's passport in the mail. (Expedited Service) 5/15 - Submitted to USPS with expedited service. 5/19 - Application status shows as "In Process". Check was also processed around the same date. 6/23 - Application status shows as "Approved" 6/27 - Received passport in the mail 7/21 - Received the original certificate of naturalization back in the mail

My wife had her oath ceremony there back in May and she saw loads of family members and friends present......first hand experience not hearsay so unless something has changed between now and then, guests are allowed. I did not go because we assumed guest were not allowed, had we known guests were allowed I would have gone.

It took exactly 6 weeks and a day from the time we handed the application in at the post office to the time we received my wife's passport in the mail. (Expedited Service) 5/15 - Submitted to USPS with expedited service. 5/19 - Application status shows as "In Process". Check was also processed around the same date. 6/23 - Application status shows as "Approved" 6/27 - Received passport in the mail

5/15 - Submitted to USPS with expedited service. 5/19 - Application status shows as "In Process". Check was also processed around the same date. 6/23 - Application status shows as "Approved"

No, we did not end up going that route after all. There was no option at the interview to do our oath on the spot. I mentioned to the IO that we had travel plans coming up in the immediate future and asked if it would be possible for him to note that in our file in hopes that they would possibly schedule our Oath Ceremony for a date after we return from our trip and he simply said "just go on the trip and in the event your Oath is scheduled while you are gone then you can just call us or email us to reschedule". I thought, okay that's not a bad idea......one week later we got a letter in the mail...lo and behold the Oath Ceremony Date was set for right in the middle of our trip. Rescheduling is not as simple as just calling or emailing them like the IO had advised come to find out. After reading the letter closely, it explicitly says that you must physically mail in the included form along with a letter stating the reason why you intend to miss the Oath Ceremony. It also gives reasons allowed, one being if your afflicted with COVID or if you have some sort of an family emergency, etc. They don't really clarify exactly what "emergency" entails so it could be construed in a number of ways....one being that standard vacations don't count. So in summary, the risk of them giving us grief on rescheduling along with the uncertainty that we could even get an emergency passport application appointment was more than enough for us to rethink our plans so we just decided to reschedule our trip, at a loss of course, in order to just get this whole process over with once and for all.

Yeah, sorry to hear you got the bad luck of the draw. Hope things start moving for you soon!

Had our combo N-400/I-751 Interview on 4/21/23. We did not send in a request for combo interview letter with our application like others have done. The officer had our entire I-751 case file on the table in front of him and simply stated "your I-751 case has already been looked at twice so I'm not going to waste any more time on it" and approved it on the spot. He then immediately proceeded with the N400 interview. I-751 approved same day. No new green card would be issued as N-400 was also approved on the same day. I-751took roughly 18 months to approve but I want to stress that, outside of receiving the notice of receipt for our I-751 application, there was absolutely no movement/updates on our I-751 till we submitted the N-400. Our I-751 was mysteriously transferred to another location immediately (same day) after we submitted the N-400.....no way that's just a simple coincidence. It obviously moved because we submitted the N-400. So you can interpret that however you want but in my opinion, they will basically sit on your I-751 for an indefinite amount of time until something major prompts them to do otherwise (in our case, the N-400). Of course this won't be the case for everyone but it certainly is for some like myself so one should not assume it's a myth based on contrary experience. It's basically luck of the draw.

Why should I? I don't recall ever saying there were cases such as the one you described getting delayed due to failure of submitting tax returns. I simply stated my personal experience just like others have, nothing more. Let me ask you this, am I or any other contributor wrong to state our experiences/opinions? Just trying to understand why you seem to be so triggered.

I completely agree with you. Each person should decide on their own what they want to do. There is no completely right or wrong answer. We are here to give advice, period. It's not about my advice is better than yours or vice versa. We only provided what was required as a minimum and got through the process just fine. That's our experience. Is it going to be the same for everyone? Nope, so it's up to each individual to take our one little bit of experience along with everyone else's and decide what they want to do.

Had our combo N-400/I-751 Interview on 4/21/23. We did not send in a request for combo interview letter with our application like others have suggested. The officer had our entire I-751 case file on the table in front of him and simply stated "your I-751 case has already been looked at twice so I'm not going to waste any more time on it" and approved it on the spot. He then immediately proceeded with the N400 interview. I-751 approved same day. No new green card would be issued as N-400 was also approved on the same day. I-751took roughly 18 months to approve but I want to stress that, outside of receiving the notice of receipt for our I-751 application, there was no movement on it till we submitted the N-400. Our I-751 was mysteriously transferred to another location immediately after we submitted the N-400.....no way that's just a simple coincidence. It obviously moved because we submitted the N-400. So you can interpret that however you want but in my opinion, they will basically sit on your I-751 for an indefinite amount of time until something major prompts them to do otherwise (in this case, submit an N-400).

5/15 - Submitted to USPS with expedited service. 5/19 - Application status shows as "In Process". Check was also processed around the same date.

The concern isn't around whether or not you would get a passport right away for an urgent travel situation. The concern is around whether or not appointments are readily available. The last thing they would want is to do a same day oath ceremony only to be unable to secure an appointment within a reasonable amount of time. Hence, the option of rescheduling being more conservative route for them to go especially given that they are not concerned with getting oath done in the near term.

Then if I were in your shoes I'd go with declining the same day oath (if they offer it and if it is even an option to decline) and either 1) hope that the oath ceremony date you get is after your trip or 2) If the date falls before or during your trip, either submit via snail mail per the instructions on your oath ceremony notification your request to reschedule or just not show up to the oath and assume they reschedule automatically.

The information I am providing is from personal experience after having actually completed the process. The poster you just quoted has not actually finished the process so what they've recommended is speculation based on hearsay. Don't even bother trying to request a specific date for your ceremony at the interview. The interviewing officer has no connection to the department that schedules oaths so they won't be able to help you there....we tried. Whether or not they automatically schedule your oath if you miss a ceremony is up in the air because there was nowhere I was able to verify that officially but supposedly they do this after two missed oaths. After that you're basically screwed and you have to start the whole process over again (best case scenario but who knows how they think....could be even worse consequences than that which would invite a whole new slew of headaches). The main driver not to do so there is that you'll have to fork out another application fee as a result in addition to doing the waiting game all over again (which you don't have concern over).

We ran into the somewhat of a similar scenario. My thought was as long as my wife still has her green card we could still travel with no issues. The problem lies in the scheduling of the oath ceremony. It's completely random and could be either at your interview, a few days after your interview, or months after your interview....there's just no telling. Best case scenario, it gets scheduled after you take your trip. But, as luck would have it, it'll probably be either during your trip or before. In our case, they scheduled it right smack in the middle of our trip, despite asking our interviewing officer if he could put a note in our file or do something to ensure our oath ceremony date would fall sometime after our trip. Obviously, no dice there. We thought about rescheduling the oath ceremony but the process of doing so has way too many openings for error. First of all, you can't simply call or email them to request a reschedule. You have to physically mail in a letter stating the reasons for a change.....snail mail, really? And they do not clearly spell out the "excuses" you can use for a reschedule. They do, however, imply that it can only be done for emergencies, one being stricken with COVID or some other crazy sickness or if you need to travel due to an emergency like a direct family death, etc. etc....but again it's not completely clear. There are also indicators that mention that if you were to miss two ceremonies they will reschedule you automatically but any more than that and you have to start the whole process over again. I was not able to officially verify that anywhere other than through hearsay...... Even if the idea that they would just automatically reschedule if you just don't show up for one oath ceremony there's no telling how long in the future they would push you out. Same goes for mailing in a reschedule request along with the risk that they might claim they never received your request. Just way too much room for error. There's also the instant passport option where you can get your passport within a day so long as you have proof that you are traveling within 14 days from the time you are submitting your application but again, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to even get an appointment with the local passport agency that handles expedited requests. Heck, here in Houston you can't even get an appointment at a local Post Office for the next 3 months! So who knows how hard it is to get an appointment at one of those passport agencies that handle immediates. We weren't going to take the risk on that option either. So in conclusion, we ultimately just decided it wasn't worth the risk and ended up eating the costs and rescheduling our trip. I know it sucks but in my opinion, it's better to be safe than sorry.

I'm not here to argue with you on the resource bandwidth of government agencies. I was simply asking if the passport service is available at the Houston Oath Ceremony or not....period. You answered that and I thank you for that. Just so you know, there are locations where they do have representatives available to process passport submittals on site. The issue is they don't clarify which ones do and which ones don't, hence, the question...geez

Appreciate the feedback but you did not really tell me anything I did not already know. My question was not asking for clarification on what each entity handles. My question was whether or not there is a setup at the Oath Ceremony that allows for on site passport applications. Years ago USPS in some oath locations would be setup to administer passport applications on site. Based on the lack of response to my question I just assume that this no longer happens.

Thanks, but I found a slot at a USPS location in Texas City for Monday May 15th last night. So for any recent oath takers at the Campbell Center, do they not have a passport application option on site immediately after the ceremony? The search function on Visa Journey is garbage so hence the question as I don't feeling like sifting through thousands of pages trying to find an answer. No one has mentioned anything about it as of late (I think the most recent reference to it was on a google review of the M.O. Campbell Center from 3 years ago).

Can anyone that has been through the oath ceremony at the Campbell center shed some light on whether or not you can apply for a passport on site immediately after the ceremony? I didn't think much about it until just now and my wife's ceremony is on Wednesday. I just checked USPS to schedule an appointment and there is absolutely nothing available at every location in town for the next 2 months! We have a trip that we've already rescheduled twice and have moved it to September but now I'm starting to sweat it again because if we can't do it on the spot then who knows when we'll be able to get an appointment which may push us out months before even being able to apply for a passport...... Appreciate any feedback....

Not so fast.....my wife's ceremony is scheduled for May 10th at the Campbell Education Center. That's next Wednesday and is not on a Saturday like you've indicated.

My wife had her interview on April 21st. We had an international trip planned leaving on May 4th (today) and figured that we'd get our oath ceremony scheduled for sometime after we got back. Lo and behold right around April 26th we got notice that her oath ceremony was scheduled for May 10th....right in the middle of our trip! Just our luck. So rather than take the risk of trying to reschedule the Oath Ceremony and getting things screwed up I just ended up rescheduling our travel arrangements....oh well. So in case you're wondering, at least in our case, they scheduled the oath ceremony pretty damn quick relative to our interview date.