In order to have a completed Dossier, you must collect thirteen documents. Once those thirteen documents are collected, they are authenticated and sent off for certification. Truth be told, I don’t fully understand this part of the process, so I just follow the guidelines that my agency tells me and trust that they know what they’re doing!
One of the thirteen documents that gets a lot of attention is the I-800A form. In a nutshell, this form is requesting permission from the United States Government to adopt internationally. The document is filled out and then sent to the Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). When the USCIS receives this document, they will issue what is called a receipt. The receipt is a notification that USCIS has received our document and will soon be issuing us official appointment times to go to our closest USCIS location and record our biometric fingerprints. We submitted our I-800A form on October 15th. We received the receipt on October 21st and then we received our letter in the mail with our appointment times on November 2nd. Our appointment was scheduled for November 12th.
One of the thirteen documents that gets a lot of attention is the I-800A form. In a nutshell, this form is requesting permission from the United States Government to adopt internationally. The document is filled out and then sent to the Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). When the USCIS receives this document, they will issue what is called a receipt. The receipt is a notification that USCIS has received our document and will soon be issuing us official appointment times to go to our closest USCIS location and record our biometric fingerprints. We submitted our I-800A form on October 15th. We received the receipt on October 21st and then we received our letter in the mail with our appointment times on November 2nd. Our appointment was scheduled for November 12th.
Some USCIS locations will allow you to walk in early to receive your fingerprinting. We were hoping walking in early would be a way for us to speed up the process, in order to begin the authentication and certification of our I-800A form. We were nervous going in early because the closest USCIS location was a two-hour drive for us. We weren’t sure if they were going to let us walk in, and the location we were going to was not the location to which we were assigned.
Fortunately, the agents working at the USCIS office were very gracious and allowed us to walk in. In fact, they didn’t even ask questions about why we were coming in early. We were seen almost immediately, too. As we were both being fingerprinted, my prints weren’t taking. The agent tried over and over, but the machine wouldn’t give a good reading. He went ahead and submitted them anyway and then told me he was going to take ink prints to submit as well in case the biometrics didn’t come back as acceptable. He told me that if my biometrics come back “unclassified,” USCIS will send me a new appointment letter to redo my prints, but he informed me not to come back in a second time because this USCIS office will just submit the ink prints for me. I took my ink prints and we headed home for the two hour trek back.
The next day, I tried calling the USCIS offices to find out who our assigned officer was. The person answering the phone said we didn’t have an officer yet and to try back in two weeks. There was no way I was waiting two weeks—that would defeat the purpose of us walking in early. I called back two days later. We were assigned an officer and I left a voicemail for him. To my surprise, he called back almost immediately. I was hoping he’d say, “Your approval will be in the mail ASAP.” However, that is not what he said at all. He said, “I’m glad you called. I was going to call you because you have been issued a Request For Evidence (RFE).” I was almost in tears at this point, so I took a deep breath and calmly asked him what that process might entail. He assured me that it wouldn’t take long and that I could email him the updated information, which is apparently unheard of—most officers require the updated information to be mailed in, and physically mailing the information would add another week to the process.
The next day, I tried calling the USCIS offices to find out who our assigned officer was. The person answering the phone said we didn’t have an officer yet and to try back in two weeks. There was no way I was waiting two weeks—that would defeat the purpose of us walking in early. I called back two days later. We were assigned an officer and I left a voicemail for him. To my surprise, he called back almost immediately. I was hoping he’d say, “Your approval will be in the mail ASAP.” However, that is not what he said at all. He said, “I’m glad you called. I was going to call you because you have been issued a Request For Evidence (RFE).” I was almost in tears at this point, so I took a deep breath and calmly asked him what that process might entail. He assured me that it wouldn’t take long and that I could email him the updated information, which is apparently unheard of—most officers require the updated information to be mailed in, and physically mailing the information would add another week to the process.
Our exact RFE was a minor grammatical error. Essentially, if our home study agency had used a comma instead of a period, there would have been no issue. It was on a section that addressed for which medical needs we were approved to adopt. I thought fixing this issue was going to be very complicated because it required me coordinating our home study agency and our adoption agency, but God’s hand was all over that correction; the entire process from informing us of the RFE to the two agencies fixing the issue, to submitting via email, took only two hours! Woohoo.
At this point, I was sure we would be approved! I called our officer to confirm he received my email containing the update for the RFE and to find out if we were approved, at which point he told me that he just found out my fingerprints came back unclassified. I told him the agent who recorded my biometric fingerprints thought they would come back unclassified, so he took ink prints as a back up. My officer insisted that submitting the ink prints immediately if the biometric prints fail is not an approved process and that I needed to wait for a new appointment and then drive two hours to the USCIS location and get a second set of biometrics. I didn’t know who to believe because the agent who recorded my fingerprints told me one thing (that I could just submit the ink prints), but our officer told me another (that I had to attempt the biometrics a second time). I could only follow the directions of our officer, so I sadly hung up the phone and waited for my new appointment to come in the mail.
At this point, I was sure we would be approved! I called our officer to confirm he received my email containing the update for the RFE and to find out if we were approved, at which point he told me that he just found out my fingerprints came back unclassified. I told him the agent who recorded my biometric fingerprints thought they would come back unclassified, so he took ink prints as a back up. My officer insisted that submitting the ink prints immediately if the biometric prints fail is not an approved process and that I needed to wait for a new appointment and then drive two hours to the USCIS location and get a second set of biometrics. I didn’t know who to believe because the agent who recorded my fingerprints told me one thing (that I could just submit the ink prints), but our officer told me another (that I had to attempt the biometrics a second time). I could only follow the directions of our officer, so I sadly hung up the phone and waited for my new appointment to come in the mail.
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