Saturday, October 2, 2010

USCIS Fingerprinting

I see lots of discussion about USCIS fingerprinting appointments.  Ours was scheduled for 3.5wks after getting the letter and we were rather disappointed in having such a simple TODO take nearly a month to complete.

After talking with folks and searching google, it became apparent that some (most?) USCIS fingerprinting offices accept "walk ins" as long as you have the fingerprint appointment letter.  They have to scan in the code block on the letter so there is no getting around that. We got our letter 2wks after sending in our I-600A.

2 days after getting the appointment letter we decided to give a walk-in appointment a try.  The USCIS office is 1.5hrs away.  We went in around 11a and there were only 2 other people in the office.  It took us just minutes to fill out the paperwork and the USCIS staff was literally waiting next to the front desk to get it done -- can't say I've seen that kind of service at a gov't office before.  The entire thing took 10minutes.

It does take 1-2 days before the fingerprints show up in the system.  I do recommend calling the number on the form and making sure they got properly connected with your case.  In our case we still don't have a case worker assigned so that is still the long pole but we at least have our TODO done so they will be able to work the case completely as soon as they start -- no waiting on us.

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