jemavalon

The short version: Had N-400 interview based on 3 year marriage to USC in Washington, DC office. Everything went smoothly, I got “recommended for approval�. Two important points:

1. You can get the oath the same day if you live in Northern Virginia and do not want to change your name. If you live in Washington, DC or if you would like to change your name (as in my case), you will be notified about the oath date later.

2. The officer wanted to get “a copy of a letter, lease or something else with our both names on it�. For some reason a letter from IRS that preceded our tax transcripts and had both our names on it, was not enough. There is nothing about such a requirement on the check-list that they sent out with the interview notice. Because I brought about 3 lb of extra documents (anything I could think of!) I had a 2 year old notice there from our landlord informing us that our rent is going up. The officer said “Perfect!�. Go figure.

The longer version:

Our appointment was at 8:40AM, we got to the office at 8:25AM and were called in at 9:35AM. My husband was not allowed in with me, but we made sure that the Officer knew he was there. He was allowed into the building.

After swearing “to tell the whole truth� etc., the officer started to go through my application. They got spelling of my middle name incorrectly in the computer (again!) so she changed that. She spent some time figuring out whether I applied when I was eligible, though I applied well after the 3rd anniversary of my GC. Then she collected my tax transcripts, asked for that “letter, lease or something else with our both names on it� that I mentioned above, and checked that she had certified copies of our marriage license and my husband’s birth certificate.

After that, she went through the application, question by question, making sure that everything was right and nothing had changed since I applied. When we got to the “arrested/ cited/ detained� question, she gave me a puzzling look when she saw “yes� checked of, until I explained that I just meant two speeding tickets. She smiled and asked me to initial the part of the application where I said that I “paid fine� for each ticket. She did NOT ask for any evidence for the actual fines though I had that in my back pocket.

Then she gave the test (10 questions from the 100 sample questions) while carefully checking that my answers coincide with the “correct answers� in the computer (this was like this: she reads a question, I answer, she waits for ~30 sec, and then says “correct�, and like that 10 times). When it came to the question “Who has the power to declare war?�, she was apparently surprised that I got it correctly. She said that almost 4 out of 5 applicants get it wrong (not surprising, huh?). She then joked about how she also has to administer English test, though she had no doubt that I can read and write. My phrase was “Today is a sunny day� which actually matched the weather

Throughout the interview I had to sign different things including photographs and test results.

Then she told me that because of name change (I’m just changing spelling but it still counts as a name change) I’ll have to wait for oath date. ;( She said they do it once a month and September is already full, so it will be October or November. Well, hopefully last phase of waiting begins! All together the interview took ~20 minutes, but most of the time was devoted to both of us waiting for the printer to print out yet one more piece of paper or her starring at the screen and complaining about how slow their new computer system is.

Overall, I was actually pleasantly surprised (compared to all the previous experiences that we had with INS/BCIS/USCIS) with the courtesy that we were treated: from security guards at the bottom level, to smile of receptionists in the waiting area, to the officer who interviewed me – we actually joked through half of the interview. Maybe it’s the new building that Washington, DC office moved to

I also want to thank everyone on this board who helped me through the process. It was really big help and support! Thank you!

Julia.

N-400 timeline (Washington, DC office):
9/23/2004 – Application filed (received by VSC)
3/19/2005 – Fingerprinting done
8/23/2005 – Interview passed
Oath??

AussieSteve

Hi Julia,
Thanks for the info. I will hopefully be going through the same process in around three years from now at the DC office. I just got my PR in July. Just a query about 'getting the oath the same day' for VA residents, do you have to let them know that before the interview? I would have thought that everyone takes the oath on the day of their interview, just curious...

Congratulations on passing the interview, and (donning flame-proof suit) being able to correctly answer 10 questions that a lot of US-born and bred USCs couldn't

jemavalon

Hi Steve,

Congratulations on getting PR. No, you don't have to let them know anything regarding the oath before the interview -- they'll tell you at the interview whether you can have your oath the same day. My understanding is that "same day oath" availability really varies by office -- some offices do it all the time, some will do it only if you meet additional requirements (like being VA resident as opposed to DC resident), others never do it. And of course, everything can change in three years .

Cheers,

Julia.

Waterpony

Congratulations! Hope your oath will be scheduled soon. I just went through N-400 interview myself in New Orleans, and my experience was similar to yours. I was not asked for any additional documentation though - only originals of docs such as marriage license and birth cert. Speeding tickets were not a problem for me either.

Best of luck...

Daliya

Hi Julia. and thank you so much. I'm with DC Office.
it seems something is wrong with dates you posted
"N-400 timeline (Washington, DC office):
2/1/2004 - Application filed (received by VSC)
2/2/2005 - Fingerprinting done
2/3/2005 - Interview passed "
can you please try different format like Feb 1, 04 may be.

AussieSteve

Huh?

jemavalon

Funny: the timeline shows up correctly when viewed on BritishExpasts forum, but completely messed up on Usenet. I have no idea why would that happen with simple text (and I work in IT and know a few things about html...).

Anyway, here is another version...

N-400 timeline (Washington, DC office):
Sept 23 2004 – Application filed (received by VSC)
Mar 19 2005 – Fingerprinting done
Aug 23 2005 – Interview passed
Oath??

Daliya

thanks :)
The dates look promising.
I had my NOA May 09, 2005 and fingerprints done July 31, 2005.
will see.

bantik2005

Congratulations on your success, looks like it all went great!

Jememennie

Congratulations and thanks for sharing your experience. I just mailed out my N-400 paperwork yesterday.

I sent them a photocopy of our mortgage payment book, as that has both of our names on it. Hopefully that will keep them happy on that point.

Did they tell you to bring along tax transcripts? Are those the printouts that you can get from the IRS office? Sounds like I might need to find those for us.

I'm also wondering how necessary the American citizens birth certificate is. My husband couldn't find a copy of his, so we sent a copy of his passport to prove his citizenship. (The instructions said we could do that instead.) Perhaps we should get a copy for when my interview rolls round.)

I'm glad to hear that the questions were taken from that list of 100. I'm a bit worried about the test, but if I can just learn the answers to that list I should be fine.

jemavalon

Congratulations on collecting and sending the paperwork!

They tell you to bring either copies of your tax returns for the last three years OR tax transcripts. You can get the transcripts for free from IRS if you like. I found them to be more convenient for someone as dis-organized as me, since I don't have to search through the files

Passport is enough. You'll just need to bring the original passport to the inteview. On the other hand, having a copy of birth certificate is never bad: at some point your husband will need to renew his passport and he will need to present a copy of his birth certificate then.

Julia.