On Oct 14, BAAS (Bay Area Adoption Service) sent our updated homestudy to USCIS so we can get a new I-171H. In order to adopt our son, we had to make changes in our homestudy to say that we will be adopting an infant male instead of infant female. Since we made a change in our adoption, we need to have a new I-171H.
On Oct 25, we called USCIS to get an update on our paperwork. The officer at USCIS told us that they haven’t received our homestudy yet. On Oct 26, this officer at USCIS left a voicemail saying that they finally got our homestudy but did not specify if they will process a new I-171H.
Several days later, my husband called USCIS and left voicemail to ask whether they have processed our I-171H. Unfortunately a week later, the office did not return our phone call. My husband called the office again. We were not surprised that USCIS did not return our phone call.
Without the I-171H, we cannot get our consulate appt in China. Without consulate appt, we cannot travel to China.
Since USCIS has not been returning our phone call, we asked BAAS if there is another way to get in touch with USCIS. The CIS coordinator at BAAS called NBC (National Benefits Center which is a central place where all international adoption paperwork are kept) to ask whether they have our new paperwork in their system. The person at NBC said they do not have any new paperwork from us. Our CIS coordinator decided to call USCIS. Luckily, the BAAS coordinator got in touch with the person we were trying to contact. In my opinion, BAAS should contact USCIS for us since I feel that USCIS would rather deal with businesses or agencies instead of individuals like us.
After the CIS coordinator spoke with USCIS, she said that our I-171H has been approved and should receive the new form in about two weeks. Our CIS coordinator said that even though our form is approved, a supervisor at USCIS still needs to sign it then mail it. So this signing and mailing of our approved I-171H will take about two weeks?? This 1-171H is not coming from China. USCIS are located in USA! Since this signing and mailing may take two weeks, this means that we may not receive the I-171H until the week of Nov 15.
The only thing we needed to change in our I-171H is the text. We just needed to have them change the Gender from Female to Male and Special Needs from No to Yes. That is it! Can’t believe that USCIS needs close to a month to get this processed! It should not take them weeks to read our homestudy and make that change into the I-171H form. We only changed about 1 or 2 short paragraphs in our homestudy.
Well we are not alone. There have been other families who have been frustated with how USCIS process our paperwork. This office pretty much does delay our adoption. Some other families waited for their I-171H for 2+ months! Not only the USCIS are slow in processing our paperwork, they are also increasing paperwork and fingerprinting fees beginning Nov 23, 2010!
Once or more like ‘whenever’ we receive our I-171H in the mail, we need to let our Chinese coordinator know so she can finally book our consulate appt in China.