Citizenship

My wife and I had our interviews today. Here are our experiences.

Both had the same appointment time. We arrived 30 minutes early. We went in through security and they pointed us to the large room on the right. We registered with the receptionist, they took our appointment letter and they asked us to take a sit. Within about 5 minutes we were called one after the other one and they returned our interview letter with a number on top, and they asked us to sit by the double doors at the end of the room. We waited there 25 or so minutes.

I was called first. It was a female officer. She was very pleasant. I made small talk as we walked through the corridor maze, and she replied to the small talk. We went into her office, she asked me to stand up and raise my right hand placed me under oath. She then clicked away in her computer and had a fairly large paper file in front of her. She moved a lot of papers around and got organized, and then asked me to place both index fingers, one at a time, in a scanner, and then took my picture.

She then said let's take the tests out of the way. She read 6 questions from her computer and typed the answers I gave her. She then handed me a paper with a simple statement, I think it was "which state has the most people", which I read back to her, and then another paper where she asked me to write, using a pen, "California has the most people". The questions she asked me were:
1. Name one freedom from the first amendment.
2. Name one branch in the government
3. Who is in Charge of the executive
4. One state senator
5. Who replaces the president if he can't do his job
6. Why did the colonists come to America

Then she asked me if I had my 2017 tax return. I gave it to her, and told her I also had the tax transcripts from the IRS. She gave me back the tax return and kept the transcripts for the last 5 years.

She then went through the entire application putting a check mark against every answer and information (DOB, address, etc). Then went to the Y/N questions and same thing. When we got to the "have you ever been arrested or cited" here is where it got a bit anxious. I had selected Yes, as I have traffic tickets, and also put yes if I have been charged and if I had been guilty. But I confirmed that it was only tickets. Here she said that I wasn't supposed to say Yes if it was only tickets, and I told her that I was just following the instructions to the letter and that since the tickets are called traffic "citations", thats why I answered yes. She leaned back in her chair and look up, still very pleasantly, and said "I see why you would answer yes". At first she changed the answer on my form, but then she revered to my previous answer and instead wrote a note explaining why I had said yes and that in her opinion it was not a problem. Before finishing her note she asked whether I ever had a DUI or anything like it, to which I said no.

Then we got to the travel question, she asked me if I travel a lot because of work and I said yes. And that a lot of it is international (in the application a year ago I listed 129 days outside of US in 29 trips). I told her that I had brought a new list of travel, since I have traveled more since filing the application. My total as of today was 41 trips and 177 days abroad. Here again, she was a bit confused. She said, "I will add this to your file, but I won't count the new days against you" or something like that.

She then started to do a lot of printing and things, and at the end she gave me a paper that said that a decision can't be made. I asked if there was something wrong and she said no, that she was recommending me for approval, but that a supervisor needs to review her recommendation, and that it could be quick or it could take 2 weeks. I was disappointed but she said congratulations and was very positive. She escorted me out. The whole thing took about 25 minutes.

Outside, I found my wife, still waiting to be called. I was surprised. At that point she told me that she had seen a lot of people leaving their interview, being asked to wait outside, and being called again to give them their oath notice for this coming Friday at 10:30am. At that point I was even more disappointed, but then remembered how long I have waited to get here, and sucked it up.

About 15 minutes later (in total about 50 minutes after the appointment time) my wife was called. She was in and out in about 15 minutes. As soon as she walked in, the Officer asked her if she had a copy of my original i-140. My wife didn't have it, and I didn't have it. She said that it was the only thing missing in her file. So my wife said that I was waiting outside and that maybe I had it. So she did the test and the picture and the Y/N and such, and they came together outside to ask me about the i-140. I said I didn't have it, but she asked for the name of the officer who had interviewed me, so that she could get it from her. Gave her the name, she said she knew her well and would get it directly and then issue an approval.

My wife later told me that the Officer said that if I was outside waiting for my Oath notice then she would just walk over to get the file. But then since I need to wait for supervisor approval, then she just said she would mail her the approval. This also was a bit disappointing, but it is what it is.

All in all a good experience. My takeaway is that either I drew a junior officer who has to get everything approved by her supervisor, or given the changes and notes to my application that the officer made, those need to be reviewed by a supervisor. I am leaning to her being junior, as she really was not fully experience on the subjects of travel days and ticket citation. I also don't really understand why the i-140 has any bearing here, but who knows.

I hope this helps someone out there. I tried to write as much as I can remember as so many others have been so helpful to me in this forum. Keep the faith. Be patient. Your time is coming. God Bless.