Susan and I got fingerprinted at the USCIS office today (at our 11:30 and 11:15 appointments, respectively).
In the mail today, Susan and I received letters from the USCIS requesting us to come to their office tomorrow to be fingerprinted for FBI checks in support of our I600A.
Yesterday, our adoption agency sent our homestudy report to the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the INS) – Sacramento office. After the USCIS receives our homestudy report, they will mail us an appointment letter to have Susan and me fingerprinted at their office (for FBI criminal checks). We should receive our fingerprinting appointment letter within a week or two after they receive our homestudy. After the fingerprinting, we will wait (possibly a month or two) to receive a notice of approval from the USCIS to bring a child from another country to the United States for the purpose of adoption. Once approved, the USCIS will mail to us an I-171H letter (“Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition”). A copy of the I-171H is required to be submitted with the Chinese adoption application (dossier) that goes to the Chinese government (to document to the Chinese government that the U.S. government has given us its approval to adopt internationally). So at this point, we need to wait to get the U.S. government’s approval to adopt from China before we can send our Chinese adoption dossier to China.
Today, we got our medical clearance letters for our adoption application signed by the doctor and notarized. So we got one more task accomplished in our paper chase to complete our Chinese adoption application.
Click here for “Study: Kids Adopted From Abroad Adapt Well” from the Associated Press.
One adoption agency verifies that yesterday they received Chinese adoption referrals for up to the November 11, 2004 DTC date.
For those who don’t know about the Chinese adoption process, rather than send notices to applicants as they are matched with orphans, the Chinese government sends out referrals (notices of applicants being matched with orphans) in monthly batches. For instance, everyone who submitted an adoption application to the Chinese government between (roughly) mid-October to mid-November 2004 received a referral today (a few others may receive their referrals over the next couple of days just because of varying times to deliver mail or some adoption agencies may wait to do some internal processing before notifying applicants while other agencies may call the applicants immediately after the mailman/delivery man drops off the referrals at the agency). The Chinese government will send out the next batch of referrals in roughly another month.