Rescheduling Oath Ceremony in California due to family emergency

[Ugo]

Hello,

I received a notice for an oath Ceremony in early September. A few days prior to the ceremony my father had a heart attack and was critical due to which I had to leave the country and go to India. Before I left I wrote a letter to them to and let them know about the situation and that I will be back in a few weeks. I was back in 10 days and found out that the ceremony was rescheduled for Oct-mid (haven't received written notice of this yet but the officer on the phone let me know he sees this in the system). My dad is still unstable and actually needs to undergo a risky open heart surgery in mid-october for which I will need to go back. Given this situation I contacted USCIS couple of times (my local office doesn't accept infopass appointments) and got escalated to an officer once who simply asked to write to the local office again and another time the officer said she would send in a request herself to the local office to see if they can expedite my oath ceremony date. I also sent in a message through the USCIS website to this office requesting the same. I got a letter in the mail last week (rather quickly after the requests I sent in), to fax in a written request for the same. I just did that on Friday and hoping I get a response soon. My question is given this situation and the need for me to travel out of the country possibly at any minute given my dad's condition, would it be better to pause this process? What could be the implications of trying to pause the oath ceremony until January next year? If I get lucky and get an oath ceremony scheduled in a different location closeby this week, can I expect the passport processing to be expedited so I can get everything ready and get an online visa to India within a few days after the Oath ceremony? Thanks for your advice.

 

[veni001]

Sorry to hear about your father situation, I would strongly recommend get your oath ceremony done and apply for your passport and request for expedite service, you should get your passport with in a week, if you have to travel within that week call DOS passport help line (24x7)and they will overnight it to you.  Once you receive your US passport you can apply for Indian e-visa (normally takes 48 hrs), if you have time, or else you can get visa on arrival in India. Good luck!