Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Ominous


Persona non grata?
I emailed USCIS starting on Sunday and each email I sent got kicked back - a "user unknown" message. I started to wonder if they had blocked my email. I swear, I have emailed them only twice. I received another contact email from our state's international adoption group. That one worked . . . and today I received this in reply:

"We received your home study on 10/24/2007. Your case will be reviewed in the order it was received."

Sounds kind of ominous, huh? I read it to mean "there are about a 1000 cases and you are number 999." Call me an optimist.

Our FBI fingerprint clearance will be 3 months old on 11/17. I wonder if we should get new. Any thoughts?

The Apostilles are here though. I am going to go home and look at them and visualize our I171H traveling speedily from 101 West Congress Parkway to our mailbox.

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

I love your sense of humor! I suppose it's either that or go insane, huh?

Matthew Ruley said...

It truly is a-maze-ing! I'd ask your agency about the 3 month old FBI clearance, cause that takes awhile too. It seems like "be as vague as you can possibly be" should be the name of this game. What would the rules be?

Roll dice. Move forward # on dice. Pick up card that corresponds, which says "documents now expire in 2 weeks. If older than that, return to "dossier preparation phase" do not pass Embassy, do not collect baby. Doh!

Don't worry, the game doesn't end until the child is 18!

Susan said...

I got my FBI clearance in June, and we got our i-171h on Sept 14th. I bet you are fine, but ask your agency. I thought those were good for a year.
I heard the FBI thing took a long time, and we only got it in 2 weeks.

You'll get that i-171h. That was the hardest thing so far in this journey for me, since everything else was waiting on that ONE DOCUMENT, and, expiring every day.

But, once I got that, i breathed a lot easier. Then, the rumors started that we'd be too old if they changed the law. However, my agency is being very optimistic and now my stuff whizzed from the Embassy to Kaz in a week, so I'm really trying hard to not worry.

So, don't you fret none, girl. :)

marsrob said...

That sucks that they are not being very disclosing with you. At least you know they are working on it. We had to get our FBI clearances 2 times...the whole "expires in 6 months" thing. UGH. I am not sure what you should do about that - maybe check with your agency?

Amy said...

Hi there! I live in Illinois and got my I171-H in two and a half months. I sent it in and received a letter back stating that my file date was 07/12/07. Then they received my homestudy a week later on 07/23/07. Then I was scheduled for the fingerprint appointment (biometrics) on 08/05/07. Then I finally got the 171-H in the mail on 9/21/07.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry about your FBI prints just yet, ours were accepted at 5 months old.
Alison

Karen said...

Boy, waiting is tough. Especially for the I-171-H. In MN, I was told three months—it took only two. Hopefully you'll get yours quicker than expected. As I recall, the FBI approval came rather quickly. I accidently paid with a personal check so I got a phone call from Susan at the FBI. (Which actually worked to my advantage because I had a name and a phone number to follow up with.) And, boy did I.