USCIS

We have been not patiently waiting for our finalized home study to be mailed to us. At midnight last night I happened to think, "Did anyone check the mail today?" Dustin was at work and I was in bed so at 6:45 this morning we checked and there it was.  I rushed to the store to fill out our I800a. 16 pages of government double speak that comes with 10 pages of instructions from CAWLI as well as the USCIS. We must have an original home study to send to USCIS with our I800A. 


USCIS stands for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Before you can submit your dossier to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), you must have approval from USCIS to adopt a child from China. You will need to file Form I-800A. Your I-800A approval notice (I-797) will be included in your dossier. This is your approval to adopt a child from China in general.
To get this approval, you must have a completed and approved homestudy in your state of residence. Immigration cannot evaluate you for approval if they don't know anything about you, your family, or your finances! So you cannot apply for approval to adopt from China until you have finished your homestudy.
Once you've submitted your dossier to the CCAA, been matched with a child, and received approval from China to adopt that child (Letter of Acceptance), then you must apply for another approval from USCIS - this time it's approval to adopt your specific child. You will need to file Form I800A to obtain this approval.


Sounds cut and dried right? If it was that easy everyone would do it. 


Right now the USCIS (previously INS) is experiencing a backlog of applications to process so it is taking around 90 days for approval. Okay, just get ours in line and wait. No it gets better. First our I-800A is sent to Texas for 2 weeks so they can make sure "all the correct paperwork is there" IE the payment check for $890. Then they send it to another office where we wait for an officer to be assigned to our case. At some point about a month later we receive notice to go to OKC and get fingerprinted. Women are more likely to fail printing than men but we don't know if the prints are good for a couple weeks. That might mean another trip to OKC fingerprinting. Eventually we will have an officer and get approved. CAWLI can then send our dossier to China. DTC  


Some APs have had success doing a "walk-in" for fingerprinting. You must wait until you receive your appointment paperwork but that will be for an appointment weeks later. If you take your appointment paperwork and drive to OKC you MIGHT get fingerprinted then. Or they might get mad and send you home to return when your appointment is scheduled. Dustin and I might try. If its cuts a few weeks off the wait, it would be worth the risk. It's best for me to drive to OKC on Mondays for the next few weeks since Jill is off work for knee replacement  surgery for 4-8 weeks. 


But regardless, we mailed our I-800A in to USCIS today. Start the countdown! We will receive an email when it gets officially received in the Texas lockbox. Some APs have recently reported getting USCIS approval in a little as 52 days. Maybe they are speeding up some.