Alright then, as promised, report from new US citizen 🤠
Had an interview in the morning. Had a long wait (approx an hour) in the waiting area. Glad my lawyer was with me, since she kept listening to my name being called while I went to the restroom and also was a great source of entertainment (OK, not only entertainment, we went through questions few more times).
Got called by a IO lady, she was about 30-35 y.o. She welcomed me and my attorney, told there's going to be trainee in the interview, then took to the room. After swearing in, she asked for my passport, GC, DL. Confirmed my name. Then she went through civics questions, it was a breeze. Same reading / writing on tablet. I got all 6 questions right, so she resumed with N-400 application.
She confirmed few personal questions, address, work etc.
Interestingly enough, she (I feel like) made a couple of mistakes on purpose reading my travel dates and other dates on form. For example, she said "so you were back from Italy on September 6th, 2024?" But I knew it was September 10th, so I answered "No officer, it was September 10th". Then she apologized for reading incorrectly. And it was 2-3 questions like it.
The she asked me how many times I was married, and more importantly, who lives at my address. When I replied "Just me and my wife", she asked whether anybody else lived with us. When I said "No", she proceeded asking about whether at any point me my wife lived apart. At that moment my attorney immediately jumped in, and pretty much told IO it's a 5 year rule application, and these questions are irrelevant. IO got visibly dissapointed (😃), proceeded with Yes and No questions. After those questions I double checked my answers and details on tablet and signed it.
Then IO was pleased to announce I passed the exam and the interview. She also told me they had same day ceremony available about 1.5 hrs later. I surely agreed 😃
The longest wait in my life was sitting in the other area for 1.5 hrs, mostly starring at US and DHS flags. I kinda reflected at that point and thought that paying a lawyer wasn't a bad idea, even though my case was easy and straightforward. I brought about 400 pages of various evidence including marriage bonafides. I brought all J1, work visa docs, marriage cert for our marriage, divorce papers for my wife's prior marriage, her naturalization cert, all passports and IDs, my naturalization cert from other country, my birth cert and translations. Essentially I was ready to fight to the end, no matter what they would have asked I had it. But I feel like my lawyer helped keeping interview short and focused. All and all, I feel like it took about 15-20 mins max.
Eventually, me and other folks got in a different room, had our GCs taken away, and read the oath together! After ceremony we got naturalization certs and checked the details before leaving.
I'm super happy the way everything went.
I'll keep disagreeing with anybody who says N-400 is the easiest part. No, officer could have made it hell if I wasn't prepared, went without a lawyer, wasn't confident or didn't listen carefully.
Good luck to everybody still waiting !
Next stop - need to apply for passport 😃