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Naturalization Not on the test

What to Wear at the Oath Ceremony

Hooray – you’ve passed your Naturalization test, and you’ve been called for your oath ceremony. But wait!

In big underlined capital letters on the hard to read purple invitation, it says

ALL ATTENDING THE CEREMONY MUST DRESS APPROPRIATELY

Yes, it really is in all CAPS. They really want you to pay attention to what your fans wear at this solemn and meaningful event. So you have to dress in proper attire. The dignity of the event must be respected. It even clearly states, no jeans, shorts or flip flops. Even in Austin, TX, where proper attire normally means you just have your genitals either covered up or painted.

But what does it mean? In the formal wear of your home nation? Mu-mus and baskets of fruit on your head and so on may be de rigeur back home, but in America, I think it means something like khaki pants and a polo neck. Shudder. Or a little black dress if you’re a man.

Surely if it says no nut-hugging jean shorts nor flippy floppies – the only named exclusions – does that mean anything else goes – unitards, tiaras, EL-wire butterfly wings and cod-pieces.

I’ve never seen Coming to America: outfits shown here,

OAthCeremonyProperAttire
Subtle

but I have seen this:

captain hook
Please hold up your right, and only hand

Also, checking out related posts on immigration portal about what to wear, it seems the consensus is somewhere between “your best clothes”, “a floral dress”, and “nothing too sexy.” Looking at this crowd shot of an oath ceremony, I would say “butt hugging” seems to be recommended. And if you are going to wear a hook, do it in place of your left hand.

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Naturalization

IRS Form 1722

I just got my letter for the Naturalization Interview and in the document checklist for the interview is “An original Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1722 listing tax information for the past three years“. After 45 minutes on hold with the IRS (using the handy number of 1-800-829-1040 provided on the Department of Homeland Security’s letter) I can tell you the following: there is no IRS 1722 any more.

The IRS operator told me that the 1722 was no longer used, and that a tax return transcript can be used instead. Luckily these are extremely easy to get hold of at theĀ IRS transcript site. They take 5-10 business days to be mailed to you.

This is contrary to the 1722 info I read online – so don’t spend hours on hold with the Internal Revenue Service wasting time. Just order a transcript and move on.

It’s a shame that the different government offices can’t have a common language to describe the same form.