Local USCIS Office in Yakima, Washington
The dept. of homeland security’s citizenship and immigration services (USCIS) wing decides on all immigration cases except asylum applications. The federal agency receives applications from inside and outside the country. To process immigration applications, and provide information and other services, there are field offices in different population centers across the U.S.
As an immigration hopeful, you are supposed to visit the field office nearest to you for an in-person interview. In some cities and states, this is a straightforward thing because there’s only one field office there. In other States, however, there are multiple offices. To find the nearest location, you can provide your zip code to the online office locator search engine of the USCIS.
The Yakima Field Office
The government has its own system for segmenting field offices. This system consists of Districts and Regions. The entire country is divided into 26 districts, and there are four regions, with a variable number of districts in them. The field office is located in the Seattle District at the following location:
Yakima (YAK) 415 North Third Street Yakima, WA 98901
This locations serve the following countries:
- Douglas
- Chelan
- Benton
- Kittitas
- Franklin
- Grant
- Klickitat
- Yakima
Like appointments and interviews, the USCIS also takes your biometrics, if needed, to the nearest location.
Case Processing Times
Cases are processed in the order the local offices receive them. It normally takes several months to process. Another factor affecting the processing time is the type of form you submit. To explain processing times, here are three examples from the Yakima field office:
- Naturalization (N-400): 12 to 17.5 months
- Certificate of Citizenship (N-600): 6.5 to 14.5 months
- Citizenship and Issuance of Certificate Under Section 322 (N-600K): 10 to 22.5 months
Note that there is a big difference between the two figures given for each form type. This is because the first figure is the months it took to complete half of the cases, while the second figure is the duration for almost all of the remaining cases (93% to be exact). Also, note that the time you see for your form type may be different from this format. The USCIS is currently using two different processing time formats: The one you see above is currently in a test phase.
Form Submission
The official website of the federal agency provides detailed information about each of the forms on the following page. You can filter the forms by category as well. It’s also possible to submit some forms online, including the N-400, the N-600, and the N-600K. (A button to submit online will be present with these forms when you search from the link given above.) More information on online submissions is available here.
Besides information, you can also use the site for calculating your form filing fees. The tool takes your form name to provide you the fee info. If the fee for your application isn’t fixed, the search tool will ask you some additional questions to give you the required details.