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N-565 questions
I'm hoping someone else has experience with this type of situation. I know what the standard response from USCIS is (I just received it, in a slightly incoherent fashion, for the umpteenth time in my USCIS Inbox), but when all these rules were written, nobody had envisioned a global pandemic would slow things down THIS much.
My wife became a citizen in June. We moved in July and in the move discovered that we could not find her citizenship certificate. In hindsight, we should have just applied for a passport ASAP, but we were put off by the long processing times (oh, the irony). We filed the N-565, and, at the time, processing times were being indicated around six to eight months. We were a bit surprised that a simple piece of paper takes this long to process, but couldn't really do anything.
In the months that passed, we received only a confirmation of the fact that Nebraska has received our documents package. Not even a note of whether or not they were sufficient. Now I see on USCIS's website that the waiting time has more than doubled (16 to 20 months) and the only people who can ask for a case inquiry are those who filed after April 2019...
It seems unfathomable to me that we might have to end up waiting for nearly two years for my wife to be able to leave and safely return to the States. It's not something we're planning on doing anytime soon, with Covid and all, but it would be nice to be able to travel once we have our shots. Furthermore, my wife's grandmother is getting on in years and should the unfortunate happen, it would be good if my wife was at least able to say goodbye. It's just really tough to fathom that she had more traveling rights with her green card and travel document than she does as a citizen after an unfortunate turn of events...
Any advice? Can anything be done at all? We've retained copies of her certificate, but were told we wouldn't be able to use those to apply for a passport. Would her travel document still be valid? (pretty sure we've retained that) Clutching at straws here.
My wife became a citizen in June. We moved in July and in the move discovered that we could not find her citizenship certificate. In hindsight, we should have just applied for a passport ASAP, but we were put off by the long processing times (oh, the irony). We filed the N-565, and, at the time, processing times were being indicated around six to eight months. We were a bit surprised that a simple piece of paper takes this long to process, but couldn't really do anything.
In the months that passed, we received only a confirmation of the fact that Nebraska has received our documents package. Not even a note of whether or not they were sufficient. Now I see on USCIS's website that the waiting time has more than doubled (16 to 20 months) and the only people who can ask for a case inquiry are those who filed after April 2019...
It seems unfathomable to me that we might have to end up waiting for nearly two years for my wife to be able to leave and safely return to the States. It's not something we're planning on doing anytime soon, with Covid and all, but it would be nice to be able to travel once we have our shots. Furthermore, my wife's grandmother is getting on in years and should the unfortunate happen, it would be good if my wife was at least able to say goodbye. It's just really tough to fathom that she had more traveling rights with her green card and travel document than she does as a citizen after an unfortunate turn of events...
Any advice? Can anything be done at all? We've retained copies of her certificate, but were told we wouldn't be able to use those to apply for a passport. Would her travel document still be valid? (pretty sure we've retained that) Clutching at straws here.
