Becoming Citizen in April, India travel is scheduled in June: Visa or OCI?

[rcmuskula]

Hi,

My spouse and daughter have oath ceremony on April 17th and their India travel is on June 16th.
We are planning to apply for US passport immediately on April 17th or 18th in expedited mode, so expecting to get them by the end of April.
That will leave us with one and a half month to apply for renunciation of Indian passport and apply for Indian visa. I hope that is more than enough time to do it.

I am wondering if we can apply for OCI instead of Indian Visa provided there is an expedited mode for it. I do not find any such information on CKGS web site.
FYI, it took almost 2 months to covert PIO to OCI card for my other daughter, who is a Citizen by birth.

Appreciate your inputs/advice.



Thanks,
Mrc

[SF-IN]

Hi Mrc

Congratulations on US citizenship.
I recently got my citizenship (Mid March) and my family is also traveling to india in mid-June too.

Here is what I have learnt

1. US Passport took about 10 days with expedited process.
2. Naturalization certificates took 2-3 days more to arrive.
3. I have a minor kid, so I have applied for my kids passport, for which I had to submit both parents naturalization certs again.
4. In the mean time, I have learnt that
- OCI processing is taking more than 2 months. So I have decided to apply for visa.
- BUT then, SF CKGS does not take in both renunciation and visa at the same time.
5. So I have to apply for Renunciation, is going to take about 2-3 weeks
6. Visa is going to take about 2-3 weeks from there

In total thats total 6-8 weeks. If you have a minor kid add two more weeks to the process. I'm hoping to wrap-up all of that by end of may.
Hope this info is helpful. All the best with your process.

[Liberty48]

Thanks

SF-IN, thanks for the great summary!!!!!!!!!.

This is a very useful duration plan of each activity from Citizenship to OCI/Visa. Most of us (including me) ignore to get planned to get OCI/Visa after Citizenship and panic if we have an urgent (or even planned) travel to India.

[rcmuskula]

Thanks SF-IN for the detailed explanation.

I read on USCIS web site that Naturalization certificates will be distributed after the Oath ceremony on the same day.
They even suggested to review them thoroughly before leaving the facility.

In my case, it is for my spouse and adult kid (18 years old).
We will apply for US passport on the same day (it will be a fight against time that day, as I am planning to rush to a Mega Passport office here Van Nuys from Los Angeles Community Center) to avoid my kid missing another day of college. In any case, whether we apply on the same day or after a few days, I am expecting to get passports by the end of April in expedited mode. That leaves us with one and a half month to get either OCI or take Visa.

I will give a call to CKGS to see what they say.