Awesome Welles

My wife and I filed N400 in March 2015. After a little time biometrics appointment came in the mail - but had her DoB wrong, so we had to cancel her appointment while they corrected their error. Mine went ahead. My N400 interview/citizenship test took place in November 2015 and my oath ceremony took place in Feb 2016.
Meanwhile - nothing from USCIS on her.

In May 2016 biometrics invite arrived and she subsequently had her N400 interview/test in August 2016 - since then - not a word, so she contacted Dept of Homeland Security, who were as perplexed as us.

Today a letter arrived stating "unable to move forward with the application until the required background checks have been completed. At this time we are unable to determine when the adjudication of your case will be completed and no further action is required from you."

My own experience of this process suggests this is not normal, in terms of timescale. Is anyone aware of any circumstances or changes at USCIS that would be the cause of this? My background checks were performed prior to my interview/test (at least I think they were....)

Rete

I've not heard of any differences in naturalizing or anyone suffering the same long delays as are wife.

May I suggest your wife contact her political representative and have their immigration liaison look into what the hold up is about. Sometimes a little nudge from the right source will do wonders in unclogging a slow moving drain.

Nutmegger

Seconded. My naturalization dragged on for two years (I didn't really care so wasn't following up --- then one day I realized how long it had been!) and I contacted my congressman's office. The immigration liaison took all my details. Two days later I got a letter in the mail with my appointment. I called the liaison to say, "Oh, don't worry, the appointment finally came . . ." and she said, "Yes, we got it set up!" So they can really move.

Noorah101

Is she by any chance from any of the 5 countries Trump recently put a ban on? Or had she traveled to any of those countries?

Rene

Awesome Welles

Nope - UK citizen born and bred. We've lived in the US since 2001- good moral standing - pay our taxes, green cards since 2008. It all seems to stem from the original N400 application where they recorded her DoB incorrectly. We filed simultaneously and mine went through without a hitch. Just wondered if anyone else was experiencing similar.

Rete

Then contact your local representative and get them involved. We did this and it works.

Awesome Welles

Will do - Thank you for the advice.

Rete

YW and let us know how things go.

Awesome Welles

Here's a quick update on all of this.

Per advice from here - we contacted our local governmental layabouts, not hopeful of any assistance and they didn't disappoint - in fact they didn't even grace us with a reply.

As another year rolled by and grumblings of ever more stringent immigration rules and restrictions from the Trumpeteers become more frequent, we contacted the immigration attorneys who we've worked with since arriving in the US for some advice and guidance.

The FIRST thing they did was to look at my wife's hands.

Apparently her finger prints are indistinct and not easy to read digitally or 'inkyly'.
The legal beagles are convinced that this is the issue - and that her file will be gathering dust in a pile somewhere and have totally dropped off the DHS radar now that her re-biometrics will have expired again.

Upshot is that we are going to have to pay for them to take-over her naturalization case and attempt to pressurize the field office into manually handling the case - to the point of providing law-enforcement background checks on my wife to establish her identity and good moral standing, if that cannot be achieved by looking at her non-existent finger prints.

Now, I imagine that the file closet at the Dallas field office is probably going to look like that warehouse in the closing scene of that Indiana Jones movie, so who knows when this is going to get resolved.

Our first thought was "Sod it, she can just carry on with a green card", but when that expires (in less than 2 years) her finger print issue is going to be a problem with that too.

So, the update is pretty much - no progress, other than lightening our wallet by another $2k, so that our attorney can go and plead our case.

Rete

Damn, that sucks. Before shelling out the two grand, hit on each and every man or woman your vote placed in office (even those who you didn't vote for if your candidate lost). Go from the state level to the federal level.

If fingerprints are the true issue here, she would have received a notification that the biometrics had to be redone. I'm assuming she didn't receive any such notification.

Yes, the older you get the less fingerprint you have to work with. Just look at your fingers compared to a 20 year olds. I had to retake the TSA prints three things before they got a set they could work with.

Two grand will pay for a relatively nice little holiday on a long weekend.

Nutmegger

OP, you say “local government,” do you mean at the state level? It is the immigration liaison at your congressperson’s and senator’s office you need to contact. I also had to have the prints done three times, including a trip to the state capital in the hope they’d finally get them there (they did).

sun_burn

That's an absurdly long drawn out story! I'm currently in the twilight zone between biometrics and interview myself, and I do hope it's nowhere that long in my case.

You mentioned your wife did her interview in summer 2016. From what I'm aware, there's a (quasi ?) legal requirement that the USCIS adjudicate (approved, rejected or RFE) within 120 days of interview. Beyond that point, there's prior case law allowing an applicant to sue them to make a decision. In her case it seems it's been a year and half since interview. That seems almost unprecedented.

gad33

I don't know who you contacted and my only experience was with our Congressman but they HAVE to help you. I can't remember if we emailed or phoned or both. But we did have to complete a form giving authorization to the Congressman's office to contact USCIS. They were very helpful and made sure our case was dealt with in the way it should have been and not ignored. The problem was USCIS not our family.

I hope you haven't shelled out money until you've tried your Congressman/woman.

md95065

While I am sure that help will normally be forthcoming I'm not sure where you got the idea that it was mandatory.

gad33

I read it on the internet so it must be true.

Seriously though, that's what our Congressman's office said but, hey, maybe they just wanted our vote.