Snowtan

My naturalization interview is scheduled for September 25th. I have a
3-week trip overseas towards the end of December/07. If the oath
cerimony happens in a month or two after the interview, I will have to
apply for a passport. Passport processing time these days seem to
take a few months. I don't think I will have enough time to get a
passport before my trip.

I have planned this trip for months with my wife and her friend. The
trip is paid for and we already have tickets, hotel reservations,
etc...

Other than cancelling the trip I thought of two other options:

1) Go to the passport processing center in Houston and request a
passport in person with some evidence of my trip. I can drive or fly
into Houston for that, but I am not sure if I would get a passport at
the end choosing this route.

2) Postponing the oath ceremony. I am not sure if this is a good idea
either. Would it be possible to request another oath date after my
return to the US, or will the next date assigned automatically be the
next available oath ceremony date ? Has anyone had any experience with
postponing an oath ceremony ? I am afraid I can be out of the country
when the I get the second notice.

Any suggestions you can share would be appreciated. Thank you.

meauxna

A couple of us here found ourselves in the same situation and had good results with Option #1. My husband, and the other poster in the same situation, both walked out with new US passports (I just discovered that this was also a potential way around the microchipped passport!).

Of course to get an appointment with the passport office, you've got to follow all their rules, like being within 2 weeks of travel.
And, your oath ceremony could be like my spouse's and be a same-day deal. You've got a lot of variables yet, so keep an eye on State's backlog with the passports and keep your options open. You've still got time to get it all sorted.
Congrats!

Mh

In article <[email protected] om>,
Snowtan <[email protected]> wrote:
>My naturalization interview is scheduled for September 25th. I have a
>3-week trip overseas towards the end of December/07. If the oath
>cerimony happens in a month or two after the interview, I will have to
>apply for a passport. Passport processing time these days seem to
>take a few months. I don't think I will have enough time to get a
>passport before my trip.
>
>I have planned this trip for months with my wife and her friend. The
>trip is paid for and we already have tickets, hotel reservations,
>etc...
>
>Other than cancelling the trip I thought of two other options:
>
>1) Go to the passport processing center in Houston and request a
>passport in person with some evidence of my trip. I can drive or fly
>into Houston for that, but I am not sure if I would get a passport at
>the end choosing this route.

Depends on your time, but.. My wife applied for a passport name-change, and
we got a new passport for our baby girl.. We applied middle of July, with
"Oct 15" as travel date (because we didn't have a trip planned at the time).
Wife got hers back in less than 2 weeks. Got passport for our daughter the
day we left on our last-minute-planned trip (Aug 11). So, even with no
"hurry-up" conditions, we got both a new passport and a renewed passport in
around a month. I heard they've temporarily re-hired some retired workers to
speed up passport processing.. Called the office and the guy said something
along the lines of: "Those guys in Hawaii are really cranking them out - you
wouldn't think California gets processed in Hawaii, but it's working really
well!"

YMMV, of course..

MH