How to win your naturalization case. Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, Immigration Lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in St. Louis, Missouri and San Diego, California. In this video, we're going to talk about what it takes to get your citizenship case approved. I have been to several naturalization interviews lately, and it's been interesting. Because of the Coronavirus, I haven't been sitting exactly next to my client and I've been sitting sort of between the officer and the applicant, and sometimes the officer's on a screen and the applicants there. The other day, the officer had his computer up and I was actually able to see what he was doing as he went through the end 400 in the Ellis System, which is the system that UCAS uses to handle the processing of a naturalization application.
I think there's some signs of success. There's some things that I can tell when someone's case is going to be approved and when they're going to have a harder time. Number one is the clients are very organized. We deal with all kinds of people. We deal with clients who are very, very organized, and we deal with clients who are very unorganized. I think that the people who are organized and who do what we tell them to do and gather the documents that we need, I think they really put themselves in a better position to get their case approved.
Another thing that happens is at the interview, those who really listen to the officer and think about the answer and are deliberate in their answer do a really good job at naturalization, and they put their cases in a much better position to be approved. When you're at your interview, you really want to listen. You want to listen to the question and you want to pause for a minute and then you want to answer the question. That's how it works. You don't want to just be going rapid fire and just throwing out whatever comes into your head. You want to be deliberate. You want to be intelligent and you want to be smart about it. You don't want to be just reactionary. You don't want to be scared either. You want to go in there confidently.
The people that I see that get their citizenship cases approved rather quickly, they're confident. The interview I went to the other day in San Diego was great because it not only got approved on the spot, but we got sworn in just a few minutes later, and that was really great. There's lots of things you can do to give your case the best chance of success in naturalizing. You really want to make sure that you look the officer in the eye and that you are as forthcoming as you can be. You don't want to be all nervous and shifty and weird. We get sometimes the video recordings of people's interviews and you'd be amazed at the faces people make and the things that they say.
The last piece of advice I would have about how to get your case approved at the interview is to make sure that you let the officer do their job. You're not in charge. You could be a doctor, you could be the president of a university, you could be a trash collector. You could be whatever, but you don't know the officer's job as well as they do, so let them do their job. Let them you through the process. Don't feel like you have to tell them everything and answer to the third question that they ask. Just let them ask their question and answer that question. Don't be giving a big, long speech. Don't be telling your life story. Just answer the question. That's really the number one tip I have is just to answer the question that's asked. Don't answer questions that aren't asked. Don't go longer than you have to. Just answer the question as truthfully and as quickly as you can, and you'll put your case in a great position to be approved.
I hope this helps. I hope you find it helpful. We have lots of naturalization videos on our website, so if you like this video, please be sure to not only subscribe to the YouTube channel, but also to make sure that you look up our other naturalization videos. We also have a Facebook group. We'd love to have you join us. It's called Immigrant Home and we answered lots of questions in there, have good discussions about naturalization and other immigration topics. You can also always call us (314)-961-8200, or you can email us at [email protected]. Thanks a lot and have a great day.
