Citizenship

My wife filed N400 online on 11/01/2018 and interview scheduled at Sacramento CA first week of June 2019. We were in the process of moving to Austin, TX and she filed AR 11 about the same time and interview de-scheduled and case has been moved to San Antonio, TX.
N400 interview scheduled on July 3rd at San Antonio. She attended the same and regarding her physical presence she was absent from US for 885 days which is 29 months out of 60 months.
During the interview IO pulled up another date for one of her trip and asked her to confirm. Since she was not good at date/time, she confirmed the date, and this made her absences from US as 37 months. She has passed English and Civic test. IO informed that they will get back to us if they need additional information. Next day USCIS online account updated that N400 has been denied.

N336:
Within 10 days she filed N336 since we were sure that she was meeting physical presence requirements. She had only 4 trips on 5 years statutory period. We have collected all the documents – rent ledger/lease documents/mortgage payments, paystubs, invoices and timesheets, tax filings etc. Approached an attorney in Austin after receiving an interview letter for the N336 appeal. This attorney put on us with lot of fear saying that if the attorney was IO then they will confiscate my wife’s green card, without listening to the fact that I as immediate relative was in US during her absence from US. We checked with them if they can accompany for the interview and they were charging $2500 for the interview process. Somehow, we didn’t feel comfortable with the attorney since she was charging a lot and also putting fear on us. Approached another attorney in San Antonio he charged $250 to go through the documents and another $250 to accompany for the interview. October 10th a senior IO interviewed her, IO thought it was a clerical error and the person authorize to pull the CBP systems was unavailable, IO could not verify all the trips. Interview was very short, and IO collected the photocopies of the all the passports and told that she will call up the attorney if the case is approved. After 4 weeks we received G56 to appear for the interview and my wife appeared for the interview on 11/18/2019. IO initially told that they can’t grant citizenship because she is eligible. Also asked if she crossed any border bridge by walk, my wife mentioned that she had been to Canada to visit Niagara Falls twice but those were prior to the statutory period. Later my wife could recollect that it was a Mexico trip for few hours. IO was mentioning that many people go to Mexico by walk, go to their home country and come back to US by walk after flying to Mexico so that CPB won’t have it on Records. Attorney explained that the trip was lesser than 24 hours and no need to mention in the application. My wife also told that if IO need evidence we can get the US stayed hotel details for that trip. IO told that she do not need any additional information and also understood that my wife don’t have any reason to lie. IO approved the case and told that my wife will be getting oath ceremony letter in 120 days. 11/20 status changed online as approved and 11/22 status changed that Oath Ceremony letter has mailed. We are excited for the Oath ceremony!!!

Lesson learned from this case is that if you are in borderline for the physical presence requirement, it’s better to take all the trip details including the trips less than 24 hours.