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Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to connect with other South Africans who are currently going through the US refugee/resettlement process, particularly those applying as a discriminated minority.

My brother-in-law recently submitted his application, and I was surprised that we didn’t receive any kind of receipt or confirmation email after submitting it. Is that normal? Did other people receive an automatic confirmation/receipt, or is it common to hear absolutely nothing after submitting?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has recently gone through this process.

A few questions I’m trying to understand:

• How long did it take before you received your first communication after applying?
• Did you receive a receipt/confirmation email immediately (or at all)?
• If you didn’t receive one, how did you know the application had actually gone through?
• How long did you wait before getting any kind of update?
• What happens after the initial application?
• Is there an interview, and how long did you wait for it?
• What sort of documents or evidence were you asked for?
• Were you asked for additional information after submitting?
• How long does the overall process realistically take?
• Does anyone have a recent timeline from application → interview → decision → travel?
• Is there a way to check the status of an application?
• Do they contact you by email, phone, or both?
• Is there anything applicants should be doing while waiting?
• Has anyone had their application sit with no communication for months?
• At what point, if any, should you follow up?
• Does applying through the current program work differently from applications people made a few years ago?
• Has anyone recently been approved and actually travelled through the program?

Something else caught my attention.

Previously, when my friend went through the application process, there appeared to be an option to indicate a preferred arrival point/location and/or the earliest time they would be able to travel. When my BIL applied recently, those options didn't seem to be available anymore.

Does anyone know why those questions/options were removed? Have they changed the application process, or are those details simply dealt with later in the process?

And finally, I’m especially interested in connecting with South Africans who are currently in the same boat. If you're applying, waiting for an interview, waiting for a decision, or have recently gone through the process, please share your experience and timeline. I think it would be really useful for everyone to compare notes.

One slightly random but important question for us: we have a cat and would want to bring the cat with us if the application is successful. Has anyone here travelled through this process with a pet? How did you handle the paperwork, airline requirements, vaccinations, quarantine/import requirements, etc.? Did the resettlement process provide any guidance or was that entirely up to you?

Would love to hear both recent experiences and experiences from people who went through the process previously.

Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m trying to gather some data on how long SS-5 FOIA requests are currently taking to process. If you’ve submitted one recently, I’d really appreciate it if you could share your experience.

Please copy/paste the template below and fill in whatever details you’re comfortable sharing:

SS-5 FOIA request:

• Date submitted: [DD/MM/YYYY]
• Date response received: [DD/MM/YYYY]
• Total processing time: [X days/months]
• Submission method: [online/web platform / paper mail]
• Payment method: [card / money order / cheque]
• Outcome: [received / still waiting / other]

If you’re still waiting, just leave the response date blank and mention how long you’ve been waiting so far.

The goal is simply to get a better picture of current processing times and whether there seems to be any difference between online vs. paper submissions or different payment methods.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share! 🙏

Hi everyone! I’m trying to gather some data on how long SS-5 FOIA requests are currently taking to process. If you’ve submitted one recently, I’d really appreciate it if you could share your experience.

Please copy/paste the template below and fill in whatever details you’re comfortable sharing:

SS-5 FOIA request:

• Date submitted: [DD/MM/YYYY]
• Date response received: [DD/MM/YYYY]
• Total processing time: [X days/months]
• Submission method: [online/web platform / paper mail]
• Payment method: [card / money order / cheque]
• Outcome: [received / still waiting / other]

If you’re still waiting, just leave the response date blank and mention how long you’ve been waiting so far.

The goal is simply to get a better picture of current processing times and whether there seems to be any difference between online vs. paper submissions or different payment methods.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share! 🙏

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I'm trying to understand whether there was any mechanism under German nationality law by which someone in the following situation would have automatically acquired German citizenship.

The facts are:

• Born in Germany in 1919.
• Both parents were Polish citizens (not German citizens).
• The family remained in Germany until 1931, when they emigrated to the United States.
• The child therefore lived continuously in Germany for about 12 years, but left as a minor.

My understanding is that Germany generally followed jus sanguinis, so simply being born in Germany would not have made the child a German citizen.

My question is whether long-term residence as a minor could have resulted in German citizenship automatically, or through any legal mechanism that did not require an adult application by the individual.

In other words:

• Did German law at the time provide for automatic acquisition of citizenship after a certain number of years of residence?
• Could a child who had lived in Germany for 10+ years acquire German citizenship independently of their parents?
• Or would the only possible route have been the naturalization of the parents (with the child deriving citizenship from them), meaning that residence alone had no effect?

I'm specifically asking about the law as it existed between 1919 and 1931, not modern nationality law or Article 116 restitution - (Yes, this child of both Parents were Jewish)

If anyone is familiar with the relevant provisions of the 1913 Reich and State Citizenship Law (RuStAG) or historical naturalization practice, I'd really appreciate your thoughts.

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand whether I’ve interpreted the StAG §15 process correctly.

My understanding is that §15 applications (for example, cases involving Jewish German ancestors who were denied the possibility of naturalization, forced to leave Germany, prevented from returning during the Nazi period, etc.) are generally handled by the same federal authorities, regardless of whether the applicant is living in Germany or abroad.

However, I recently saw a post mentioning that there are around 30,000+ StAG §15 applications in the backlog, and it made me wonder:

• Are all StAG §15 applications processed by the same department/queue nationwide?
• Or can someone significantly reduce the waiting time by first moving to Germany and submitting the §15 application from within Germany?
• Does applying from inside Germany only speed up other types of naturalization procedures, while §15 remains handled separately?

In other words: if someone is eligible for StAG §15, is there any practical advantage to relocating to Germany before submitting the application, or would they likely face the same processing timeline as someone applying from abroad?

Thanks for any insight from people who have experience with §15 applications!

Am I correct in understanding that if a male ancestor reached the age of 18 after the 1951 Citizenship Act came into force (for example, in 1952), then any later foreign military service (for example, service in the US military) would be irrelevant for the citizenship analysis?

My reasoning is that if the person was only 17 years old in 1951, they could not realistically have already entered foreign military service at that point, and any military service would have happened later under the post-1951 legal framework.

Therefore, would a citizenship application through such an ancestor generally not need to be supplemented with foreign military records (such as US Military Personnel Records / National Archives records), because the ancestor could not have lost citizenship through the pre-1951 foreign military service rules?

TL DR; If the ancestor turned 18 in the summer of 1952, it is completely irrelevant to show military records, right? (for example; service records for the ages 18-24)

Thank you in advance for any insights!

I believe I may have finally found the historical reason behind a very unusual age discrepancy in a Polish ancestor's records, but I am now trying to understand how this could have actually been accomplished administratively.

The ancestor in question was a young Jewish man from Congress Poland, specifically from the area shown as the green territory here (former Gubernia Płocka):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_of_Congress_Poland#/media/File:Polska_1907_adm.png

He emigrated from Poland in November of 1920 (to Canada, via Belgium)

For a long time, the "age discrepancy" in his civil registration, seemed like a simple mistake. However, I recently found the 1920 amendment to the Polish military conscription laws that explains everything:

Act of 15 June 1920 concerning universal conscription of the 1895 and 1902 birth cohorts, published in Dziennik Ustaw, item 298:

[link: https://dziennikustaw.gov.pl/D1920048029801.pdf ]

The important point is that tis law specifically brought the 1902 birth cohort into the military conscription system.

I.e., If this ancestor was actually born in April 1902, then in November of 1920 (emigration date) he would have been the generation that Poland was beginning to call into military service. (I.e. he would not have been issued a passport? Can this be proven?)

This makes the following timeline much more interesting:

Records supporting a 1902 birth:

• Canadian passenger landing record (late 1920): age 17
• Family tradition: he was not actually born in 1903, but deliberately made himself younger (although nobody knows exactly WHY or HOW)
• Death certificate (information provided by his own child): April 1902.
• Tombstone: April 1902 (apparently based on the death certificate)

Records supporting a 1903 birth:

• U.S. Declaration of Intention (1924): August 1903 (reported by himself)
• U.S. Petition for Naturalization (1931): August 1903 (reported by himself)

So the central question is:

What administrative step would a Jewish male person in Congress Poland around 1920 have needed to take in order to suddenly become "born in 1903" for passport/emigration purposes instead of "born in 1902"?

I am not necessarily assuming outright forgery.

I am trying to understand the actual mechanism:

• Was there a straightforward way to obtain a passport with a different birth year?
• Were birth certificates or civil registry extracts routinely checked during passport issuance?
• Could someone simply make a declaration/affidavit of birth?
• Would passport authorities verify against the local civil registers?
• Were there differences between the records held locally and the documents used for international travel?

Alternatively:

How difficult was it to change or correct a birth date in the civil registers around 1920?

• Were amendments to birth records common?
• Could a person petition to change their date of birth? (how long was the process?)
• Did this require a court order?
• Would such a correction leave a paper trail?
• Could a local registrar simply alter an entry, or was the process more formal?

The part I am trying to understand is the "trick" or administrative hurdle this person would have had to overcome.

If the original civil record says "April 1902", how does a person leave Poland ½ a year before actually turning 19 with documentation saying "August 1903"?

Would the Polish passport have been based on:

• the actual civil registration entry,
• a Jewish community record,
• a military registration record,
• a sworn statement,
• or something else?

I have also considered calendar differences, because this was former Congress Poland and records may involve different calendar systems.

However, I am not sure whether calendar conversion could explain a discrepancy of approximately 16 months (April 1902 versus August 1903), or whether this is clearly too large to be explained by Julian/Gregorian differences alone.

The reason I am asking is that locating the correct Polish birth record is currently difficult.

The correct birth record will likely only become identifiable once the name can be matched correctly with Polish records. The situation is:

• The Canadian passenger landing card from late 1920 lists him as 17 years old. The name spelling there is quite unique and differs from later American records.
• The family story says he was not born in 1903, but intentionally made himself younger. Nobody knows Why - or How.
• We do not know whether he changed the passport information, altered a document, or used another administrative route to suddenly be 16 months younger than reality.
• The death certificate and tombstone both point to April 1902 (presumably correct age).
• The U.S. naturalization records consistently point to August 1903 (presumably correct age).

For additional context: all surviving civil records from this particular town that I am researching are written in Polish (not Russian) and follow a Napoleonic-style civil registration format, reflecting the administrative traditions of the former Duchy of Warsaw / Congress Poland period.

I would especially appreciate input from people familiar with:

• Polish passport regulations from 1918–1921
• Ministry of Interior procedures
• Military Registration andConscription Records
• Congress Poland civil registration practices
• Jewish community records
• Historical examples of birth-date corrections

My goal is not simply to prove that he changed his age — the evidence strongly suggests that he did. I am trying to understand how someone in his exact historical situation could have accomplished this in practice.

The combination of:

• Jewish emigrant,
• Congress Poland,
• 1902 birth cohort,
• 1920 conscription,
• departure at age 17/18,
• and a later consistent 1903 birth date in U.S. records

feels like it should have a documented historical explanation.

Hi everyone,

I have a question about the minimum documentation required to submit a confirmation of Polish citizenship case to the Ministry of Interior and obtain a case number.

On some German citizenship subreddits, people have discussed a strategy due to the current backlog of 2+ years: submit the absolute minimum documentation necessary to receive a case number, and then supplement the file with additional documents as they become available. This allows applicants to keep their place in the queue instead of delaying submission while waiting for documents that can take an extremely long time to obtain.

I'm wondering whether a similar approach is possible for Polish citizenship confirmation cases.

I'm currently helping my neighbor with her case. Her grandfather was born in Poland in the early 1900s and emigrated during the second half of 1920, most likely traveling on a Polish passport. We are currently waiting for records from the USCIS Genealogy Program (Alien File, visa records, etc.), which currently has an estimated processing time of around 300 working days.

The reason these records are important is that they should reveal the passport number he used when emigrating, allowing us to conclusively match him to his Polish civil records. Once we have the correct identifying information, obtaining the Polish civil registration records themselves should be relatively straightforward.

Complicating matters, he departed from Belgium to Quebec City in late 1920 under a version of his name that differs slightly from the name he later used when entering the United States via the Canadian border. By the time he filed his Declaration of Intention and later his Petition for Naturalization, he had stopped using the original "Atlantic ticket"-version of his name (a middle name was dropped, and surname spelled differently)

Until we receive the USCIS genealogy records, we cannot conclusively connect these different identities to the correct Polish birth record.

Aside from that outstanding issue, we've already obtained and apostilled all of the U.S. civil records covering the family's life events (birth, marriage, death, etc.).

So my question is:

What is the absolute minimum documentation required to submit a Polish citizenship confirmation application and receive a case number from the Ministry of Interior? Has anyone successfully submitted an initial application and then supplemented the file later with additional evidence while retaining their original place in the processing queue?

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with this process. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have a question about StAG 15 applications.

My understanding is that once the Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA) receives and registers an application, it is assigned an Aktenzeichen (AZ) and joins the processing queue. From what I've read, it's also possible to submit additional documents later if requested or if they become available.

My question is:

What is the absolute minimum required for a StAG 15 application to be accepted for registration and receive an AZ number?

For example, if my goal is to get the case into the queue as soon as possible, would it be sufficient to submit:

• the completed application forms,
• proof of identity,
• the core documents establishing eligibility,

and then provide supporting documents (such as harder-to-obtain civil records, background checks, or other evidence) afterward as they become available?

Or does the BVA generally expect the application to be substantially complete before they will register it and assign an AZ?

I'd especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has submitted a StAG 15 application with missing documents and successfully supplemented the file later, or from anyone familiar with how the BVA handles incomplete applications.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I'm curious if anyone here has recent experience requesting a deceased person's Social Security records through the SSA.

I mailed my request in very early June 2026, using the proper forms, included the correct money order, and (as far as I can tell) everything was filled out correctly.

Specifically, I requested both:

• a photocopy of the deceased person's original Application for a Social Security Card (SS-5), and
• the Numident (computer extract of the SSN application).

I've been trying to get a sense of how long these requests are currently taking, but I haven't been able to find any published average processing times on the SSA's website.

For those of you who have made similar requests recently:

• How long did it take before you received a response?
• Is there any noticeable difference in processing time between mailing the request versus submitting it through the online FOIA system?
• Does requesting both the SS-5 and the Numident tend to take longer than requesting just one? I'm wondering whether each record type has its own backlog, or if they're generally processed together as a single request.

I'd really appreciate hearing about anyone's recent experiences. Thanks in advance!