I-600A

Earlier today I started working on our I-600A application. The I-600A application is the first portion of the paperwork that has to be filed through the USCIS (United States Citizenship & Immigration Services). A U.S. Immigrant Visa is required for each child being adopted from abroad. This visa will allow our child to enter and reside in the United States.

I have finished filling out all of the initial application and tomorrow will begin to gather some of the other documents that have to be included...birth certificates, marriage certificates and copy of homestudy. We have already had to include all of these with our Dossier paperwork, so I am hoping that I made extra copies. Once all of this has been submitted, our local USCIS office in Kansas City, will contact us with a date and time to appear at the USCIS office to be fingerprinted. Once we have been fingerprinted it will take approximately 2-3 months to get our 171-H clearance letter.

I am really not sure why we have to be fingerprinted again, especially since this will be our 3rd time doing so. We just had them done a couple of months ago in Jeff City with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Apparently the FBI agency doesn't work closely with other law enforcement agencies. You would think that they would all share information such as fingerprints and have it in a large database that would be accessible to all law enforcement agencies, but that would probably be too easy.