Chocolot

Just a quick hello from the other side.

We applied for a spouse visa and as soon as it was approved jumped. We have been back here for about 18 months now. We have a network of USC friends as well as picking up with a number of my old friends.

Of course I am happy here it is where my kids and grandchildren are and I think OH has adjusted really well,

anyone who wants specific questions answered I will do my best,

ps I still can call a US number for a chinwag if anyone is up for it.

congrats on your forthcoming marriage and K1, the paperwork will still be useful to you for the offshore visa application at DIAC if you decide to marry in Australia. A heads up though, FBI fingerprints are taking 13 weeks to process so the sooner you apply the better.

http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/partner-outside.htm

may help.

Hope it helps

Did you have your interview at the Oakland Park office?

yes my N400 was the first visit to the new Oakland Park office, my timeline will give you ideas of the length of time I waited between interview and ceremony, but I had the test and interview at the same time

I did a walk-in for fingerprinting at the Oakland Park ASC this morning and had no problems. (My appt was originally scheduled for January 19 but I'll be out of town.) I was the first in line when the fingerprinting section opened at 7:30 and was out of there by 8am. No one seemed to notice the appointment date on my letter so I didn't mention it, and after I'd had the prints taken it was stamped and returned to me.

One thing: I asked the woman at the reception desk how long interviews were taking and she said three to six months. She also said that sometimes they do the citizenship test and interview separately on different days. Has anyone ever heard of this before? I thought they were always done at the same time; seems like a waste of time and effort to do them separately, no?

She also told me that they do NOT offer same-day oaths at the Oakland Park office.

I had the test and interview the same day, but had to go back a couple of weeks later for the ceremony,

good luck, you will soon be all done with USCIS and on to passports voting SSN etc

I have my interview scheduled to be on Jan 19 - a mere 12 days from now, yet the waiting is driving me up the WALL!!!!

I have studied all the questions, organized my papers to be ready, got the additional passport pictures, and now there is nothing to do but WAIT WAIT WAIT.

don't get my wrong, I am not complaining. so far the whole N400 process has gone smoothly and quickly. It's just that I am so excited about it, and want to get it all done....

how did everyone deal with the waiting? did it drive you crazy also?

Congratulations on reaching this point in your journey, you say you have all your papers ready. Have you completed your passport application, a new SSN application and Voters enrolment, it may be possible to hand them in on the day, it seems endless waiting but there is a lot to do too!!

Good luck for a terrific day

joint ownership of property

So . . . should I get ready to be deported?

What Krikit said..."no"..

The Immigration officer asked me if we would have children, I should have thought our ages would have shown that to be impossible except for a miracle.... and we certainly would have made the news being in our 60ies....

but seriously I would address some of the circumstances in a cover letter, they have to make the forms to fit one and all and obviously there are huge differences with couples in varying stages of life. I addressed our wanting to keep our financial agreements separate as I have sons and also the fact that I didnt acquire my hubby's family name but kept my own.

Most of all dont panic, but look at getting what you can, you can do it

best wishes

edit ps the fact that I am a dependant, not working outside the home seemed to be a convincing factor too... obviously I wasnt only after a greencard,

Congrats... to those still waiting, good luck

I am so sorry to hear of your loss, this scenario is an immigrants nightmare. I hope you find an answer and my thoughts and condolences to you

Unfortunately, I might be one of those cases where there is no resolution, despite the countless wasted hours spent on the phone with every possible screwed up government agency (ha, do I sound like a US citizen now?) Nobody seems to know where my certificate is.>>SNIP

I am so sorry to hear of your experience, I am one of the lucky ones, as my certificate arrived in today's post!

and we are very relieved to finally be done.

Today I received my Passport, YAY and voters enrolment, SS Card came the other day, so just the Certificate and I am done too

Jayde..............Fort Lauderdale,FL....09/16/09...............10/10/09.............--/--/--.............Normal

I will leave someone else to update the list, as I mess up the formatting....Still!! Guess its too late to learn now, hehe

Well, my re-issued passport was delivered today - the day after the one missing in the mail finally showed up. Of course, I was at work and not home to accept delivery as Fed Ex needs a signature so have to go and pick it up after 6 pm but that's ok:-). I can do that. 9 days from cancelling the other, receiving the non-receipt form that I sent back, re-issuing and delivering my new passport - I'm impressed

<<snip>>

Edited to add: And I now have it in hand! It is marked clearly on one of the pages that it is a re-issue for the passport issued September 17th.

Finally your journey is totally done, congrats Kathryn

Hi everyone,

I will be attending my oath ceremony on September 30th so I have already started thinking about getting my passport book and updating the SS status. Therefore, I will be joining this thread soon. As for now I plan to apply for my passport on the same day i.e. Sept 30. I was wondering if it is possible to update the SS status on the same day. for SS, do they accept the copy or the the original certificate of naturalization.

Kikidough, I see from your timeline that you got both of the tasks ( passport & SS) done on the same day. How did you manage it? Did you go to SS office first?.....Also just want to make sure that we are supposed to send in our original certificate of naturalization along with the passport application..right?

After reading some posts around here, I am a bit apprehensive about it but anyways what can we do if it really is necessary..Good Luck to you all hope we will be done with this journey soon.

Thanks,

Jess

Hi Jess, I did the same thing, went outside and handed in my enrolment to vote (they had a table there) from there to ss office to change my status, he said it may take a week to get in the computer but took all the details and gave me a receipt, then on to the passport office to send in the application and wave wistfully goodbye to the certificate that was only a couple of hours old.

I got all the forms online and had them completed the day before, knowing that without the passport I'd be unable to travel outside the US again.

hope it helps

Snip>

For those of you who are interested in finding out the status of your passport application, you can check out this website:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/about/npic/npic_896.html

Thanks Kathryn

I have a Garmin Nuvi 265WT.....wide-screen with lifetime traffic (WT). I call her Aimee.... because she aims me in the right direction. She's awesome. On a long trip when you don't know where you are and you need a bio break, you ask Aimee and she tells you where the closest one is. Same goes for food, airports, shops.... all that good stuff.

I found it interesting that she couldn't find a specific new address, once, (though she took me to the closest area) but after I'd been to that address she knew exactly where it was. I didn't know she could remember things she didn't know to begin with!

The traffic feature is awesome too. Shows you exactly where the problems are, and your best options. And if you get lost she recalculates and gets you right back on track.

SNAP.... only i refer to ours as "the Lady" unless shes recalculating which tends to be frequently when we change our minds and then I call her "the female dog"

Her tone gets very annoyed when we dont do the u-turn she requested....lol

We got affidavits from everyone that we could get to sign one lol. I have like 7 of them sitting in front of me and I am not even filing to remove conditions till next month. I figure the more you can get the better. I am having our Aussie family do them as well.

Can't have too much paperwork (my motto)

My only blood family in Australia are my adult sons. Although they have met hubby and dont appear to be any issue with our relationship I'm a little reluctant to ask them as I think they may feel as if they are being disloyal to their Dad.

I have Australian citizen friends in Oz that I am waiting for and the others will be from the USA. I agree with your motto, USCIS has taught me well!

oh and timeline.. I know you aren't submitting it through the same embassy as I did (Tokyo) but I just thought it might give you some idea of what to expect

22 March 2007 - Submitted application documents

During April- medical examination and background checks

21 May 2007 - RFE, they wanted to see our actual marriage certificate (we only sent them a copy)

overnight expressed it to them

24 May 2007 - Visa approved!

Thanks for all the info, kaffy, as I say, its the affadavits I am having trouble getting. Did you get Aussies to do yours or people from where you were living at the time?

"We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you.

Your passport application locator number is XXXXXXXX.

You requested delivery by regular mail. Passport Agencies use Priority Mail.

This means you should receive your passport on or about 09/23/2009."

Almost there!

Great news Kathryn, how do you find out?

Hello! My interview was today and it went well.

>>Snip

He gave me a white form that said I had passed the reading/writing/civic test and that I was recommended for approval. He then printed out my blue oath letter - September 23rd in Baltimore - and then I was free to leave.

Phew!

nice one kiki doug, except the parking fees, congratulations, you dont have long to wait for the ceremony.

Breathe... It will be fine, you are proving that you have met at this stage. The tickets, boarding pass and your passport stamp with a photo, do that.

Later you will need to prove the relationship and any forms of contact can help there. We used snail mail, IM, emails, screen prints and phone records. From now on you will be thinking "oh that will help for our application" and find yourself increasingly hoarding your pile of useful bits and pieces.

good luck on your journey

Hi all, grats to Jadye on her naturlization, all very exciting.

Our case not so much.

Was just wondering if anyone knew anything about immigration to Australia, because frankly the US justice system and US immigration system are busy screwing us around something cronic and well we just want to get on with our lives together, if anyone has any experience with it could you let me know? THankies

Mara

Hi Chris and Mara, apart from the Aussie govt visa site, I have taken to watching two forums, the british expats and poms in oz, as there doesnt seem to be as much knowledge re USC applications.

If you are applying for a fiance or spouse it looks as if its a 4-6 month timeline once you have completed the application and got all the documentation submitted. (I called the Washington Embassy and thats what they told me) but people in the UK seem to be getting them within a month in sime cases. SO it could be another cya comment from a mis information line.

I am collecting stat decs from friends and rellies and that seems to be taking me the longest, as most of the other proof of relationship is in my copies of the US applications.

Hope it helps, good luck with whichever journey you embark on

Interesting you say you can only travel on a US passport - I thought that Aussies who are dual nationals are supposed to enter Australia on their Australian passport. Unless you mean you have to use the US passport if you travel elsewhere or use it coming back into the US?

They tell you at the ceremony that you are not allowed to leave the US except on the US passport, and since you no longer have a green card, you dont have much choice, unless you expect to never leave the USA.

But of course entering Australia (or any country that you are a citizen of, you have to enter and leave on that country's passport)

Yeeeah! I passed the test and was recommended for approval! So here is the short story long..

My husband and I arrived to Philly an hour ahead of my scheduled time, because you never know with the traffic and rain. We found some street parking and decided to sit and wait in the car for some time. 20 minutes before my appointment we headed towards the building. Went through security check, got to the third floor and began waiting.

We noticed that officers were coming out and calling names. I said to my husband: "Do you want to bet that whoever is calling my name is going to mispronounce it?" I have a Polish last name due to my husband's heritage and nobody says it right here in the States. Ha! And of course the officer that called my name, got it right! He was a young, pleasant guy..we made a small talk about my bet about the pronunciation and meaning of my last name (means beer in Polish)..then he asked me how tall I was...I'm 5'11 and was wearing high heels. He was curious if I played any sports because of my height, I told him that no and that my dad used to be a professional basketball player.

Then he sworn me in...went over my application and asked if I was ready to take my test.

1. What is the name of the national anthem?

2. How old do citizens have to be to vote for President?

3. What is the "rule of the law"?

4. What ocean is on the West Coast of the United States?

5. Why does flag have 13 stripes?

6. What major event happened on September 11, 2001 in the United States?

I was asked to read: "How many Senators do we have"? And I wrote the answer: "We have one hundred Senators."

He congratulated me and gave me this form that states that I passed the test and was recommended for approval. Officer gave me the "standard" you will receive your oath letter within 4 to 6 weeks. I asked if he knew any specifics and he said that the oath will most likely happen until the end of the year and will take place in the same building as my interview.

He asked if we were going to stick around in the city and celebrate, and I told him about the place that I picked for our late lunch celebration, he approved my choice and said that they have good food! And food was good indeed - with some great margaritas to celebrate!!

Great news Tata,

Like you I wondered about the CO pronouncing my name, but he got it right too.

congratulations

Hi Guys, congrats to you all on the progress you are making, I thought I'd just post a quickie, to let you know that I have completed this journey that started in 2004.

Today 176 people from 46 countries were naturalized in the 1st ceremony of the day. I arrived at 7.20am for my 7.30 appointment to find few parking places left (there is a multi there) and a queue right through to the back of the carpark. The ceremony was officiated by the Head of the USCIS office and was finished well before 9am.

Since then I have been to the SS office to change my status and completed my voters registration. We copied my certificate and gave it over at the passport office with the application, it seems strange to let the piece of paper that has cost approx $2000:00 and so many frustrations out of my hands after less than 3 hours. Because you have to hand in the green card on naturalising and can only travel on a US passport after, I feel it is important to get the passport without delay, so another $100:00 had to be budgeted for.

It may seem a long way off if you are at the beginning of your journey, but thought Id drop in to let you know there is an end to it! Unless of course like us, you now have to turn around and get the Aussie spouse visa.

Please can someone add my details, I can never get the formatting correct. I sent my passport application off with normal processing from Fort Lauderdale today straight after the ceremony.

Thanks