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Hola compadres!
I know we're from all over the country, so our 1-600A's went to different offices for processing, but I wanna know how long it took for you to receive your 171-H?
Our agency thought it would only take a month with our office
(Tampa). But the BCIS site says our office is still processing petitions from Sept '03! Waaaaaaaaaah. I don't know what to think.
So help us, it really stinks when impatient people decide to adopt! hehehehe :) Not knowing what's reasonable to expect makes this much harder, don't you think?
I mean we still haven't really begun, since our dossier isn't quite ready to turn in yet.
God, give me patience...and give it to me NOW! LOL
Robin
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Hi Robin, getting our 171H was a lengthy process! We live in Tennessee, and our home study had to be approved by a Tenn. agency called ICPC. This occured about a week after they received the home study and it was then forward to BCIS on August 18th, 2003. We received notification of our fingerprint appointment on September 10th, went for fingerprinting on September 29th, and finally received our 171H on November 5th! So BCIS basically took over ten weeks to process us. Believe me, it was a long ten weeks! Our dossier was completely ready and waiting for it.
So, I hope your goes faster than ours did!
Joan
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We submitted out I-600a without our homestudy the end of January. They sent us to do our fingerprints the end of Feb. Our homestudy was done and sent to Arizona courts for approval (took 2 weeks for that approval), then it was sent to INS the end of March. We received our approval the end of April. It only took about 3-4 weeks from when they received the homestudy to getting our approval. Of course, the fingerprints were already done by the time they got the home study.
Our office is in Arizona and it seems very efficient. I have even called and talked directly to the person that handles adoptions. When we had to have our fingerprints re-done (15 month rule), the appointment was made within a week.
Good luck with the process.
Like Arizona, Indiana seems to move faster than most states (maybe due to smaller population?).
Sep. 2002: I-600A application to Indianapolis INS office (without homestudy)
Oct. 2002: FBI fingerprints (they sent us the appointment letter 2 or 3 weeks after getting our I-600A)
Nov. 2002: Homestudy interviews, home visit, etc. (typed, notarized, and returned to us on Dec. 17, 2002...FedExed to Indianapolis immediately with SASE!)
Dec. 23, 2002: I-171H approval on its way to our home! (less than 1 week from when we sent our homestudy!!!)
Rebecca
(Of course, we'll have to resubmit the I-600A and all of the paperwork that goes with it again, since ours will expire in June. Argh. But at least we know that Indiana is fast! And "Cecilia," the Indiana adoption adjudicator, is GREAT to work with...if she doesn't have an answer, she'll find it!)
P.S. I should mention that I think FedExing the application and homestudy and including a return FedEx (postage paid) envelope might help with the "speed" of things. ;)
The Milwaukee office is pretty quick, although they won't give you a fingerprint appt until after they get the homestudy. So we sent in the I-600A application with no homestudy and they sent a letter saying to send in the homestudy when completed. We got the notification for our fingerprint appointment a week after the homestudy was sent and the appt was 2 weeks out. And it was 2 weeks from the appt until we got the I-171H. So it was a total of 5 weeks from the time we sent in our homestudy until we were approved.
I would not go by the website, I did that as well and it said they were working on applications from 3 months ago. Search the forum for "Tampa BCIS" and see what you find. I did this for the Milwaukee office which is how I learned it was a relatively quick process (and it was :) )
Julie