[ozzyoli]

Former Green card holder now Citizen as of a few days ago.

Submitted an online form 4 months ago, received an interview date two months ago, had my interview last week.

Interview was at 8:30am Oath ceremony was at 9am Registered to vote at 9.15am Back at work at 10am!

Submitted passport application the day after.

Interview was straightforward and most of the time was double checking all the information I had previously submitted was accurate. Learning the answers to the civics test was fun.

I think there is a cliche of a stern interviewer who is looking for any excuse to say no, but this officer was kind and encouraging.

The oath ceremony was actually quite moving. I often see most displays of patriotism as some kind of pseudo mental illness but the patriotism shown by the officiant was actually rational, inclusive and inspiring.

All that to say, am lucky and pleased to have such a smooth journey to citizenship and am happy to be able to vote!

[ChumpGPT]

Wow, they really streamlined it. I wonder how they did that. I spent a decade in the US (Permanent Res), wife was American, had two kids, worked for a solid 10 years, payed an enormous amount of taxes, had two properties, no record, not even a parking ticket and it took about 12 months and that was pre 911.

I guess they must have changed the requirements since and hired 1000's of people to process everyone. Lucky you.

[addicted]

The answer is funding.

USCIS needs to be fully self reliant on funding, a restriction not placed on any other agency from what I know.

Congress passed a bill a couple of years ago increasing the fees of several kinds of applications allowing for more funding, after a long gap. Further, they passed funding for digitizing their processes and updating computers after about 2 decades.

An additional factor is the massive backlog created by the Trump administration whose strategy was to simply add roadblocks and delays to the simplest processes. This was further exacerbated by pandemic slowdowns, so the increased capacity, combined with the removal of ideological opposition to legal and authorized immigration and a large backlog has likely resulted in the large numbers of citizenships.

[belgiandudette]

Ours was even faster. Submitted our naturalization application March 31. Had passport in hand by mid May. Interview and ceremony was between those dates.

[godsinhisheaven]

>I often see most displays of patriotism as some kind of pseudo mental illness

Why is that? It just doesn't seem rational to me to see it that way, but if that is how you feel then that is how you feel. I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, I already know I can't, but just some explanation would be valuable.

[orwin]

When there is no reason to display it, i find it weird tbh. Not aggressive, just weird and uncomfortable. I get it for sports or official ceremonies, but else it often just seems to either seek conflicts (Hooligans), or more often, seek cheap branding.

And there is ways to display it. A pub calling itself "Penny Lane" and displaying a liver bird is totally fine, but when an english pub looks excessively, in-your-face english, i just can't, and i would bet most englishmen living in the same city couldn't either. It's just so weird.

[tw04]

> I get it for sports

It actually makes no sense at all for sports beyond billionaire owners trying to make fans feel like we’re all one, big, happy family. What on earth does the National anthem have to do with grown men playing baseball or football? Do they sing the National anthem before you sit down and start coding every day?

[chgs]

I guess that’s an Americanism - no national anthem played at the start of club sports in the UK as far as aware. Country level sports where the national team is playing, sure.

[orwin]

I was thinking about the world Cup or the Olympics tbh, I don't really have the American context.

[fancl20]

The belief of "I should" is one of the core part for Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD, not confused with OCD). The behaviour is largely driven by the anxiety of "fail to e.g. be citizen" and sometimes is considered a little extreme from others' view.

[smokedetector1]

A patriotism that sounds like "we are the best" often coincides with spurning rational and empathetic assessment of reality in favor of using this patriotism as a prideful crutch.

[JoeyBananas]

The US federal government doesn't do anything for its citizens. They are more interested in initiating WWIII and terrorizing the middle east.

[justin66]

Congratulations!