USCIS day - at last!

Woo Hoooo!! Yesterday was USCIS day.

What is USCIS? It is what used to be known as "Immigration" and now known as "Homeland Security." Among its many and varied functions, this federal agency makes sure that adoptive families meet US and foreign requirements to adopt internationally and verify that prospective adoptees are in fact, considered "orphans" as defined by international law. This agency is the gatekeeper that permits us to (eventually) get a visa for our son to enter the US. Families wanting to adopt must complete a form I-600A, attach relevant documents including a home study, pay a large sum, fill out the form and pay to be fingerprinted. These prints are checked by the FBI. We completed this step of the process September 2007 and once we were cleared, we were able to submit our family dossier to Vietnam. We were then directed to complete the form I-600 specifically asking for Hung to be preliminarily approved as an orphan to be adopted by our family. We sent our papers to our agency in January, 2008 where they have sat for 10 long months waiting for his province to issue a needed document for his dossier to be complete.

Yesterday one of the best messages was in my e-mail in box - "Dear Mr/Mrs. Duda - This is your receipt of your I-600 application....Processing will usually take less than 60 days." No - this does not mean that if everything goes OK, we can go for Hung in 60 days or less. It means we will have initial approval of his orphan status. He will be issued a visa to enter the US only after we are interviewed in person at the Embassy in Hanoi.

It was also USCIS day yesterday because Jim and I were "invited" upon our request to re-print because our fingerprint clearance expires after 15 months. We never thought we would have to worry about this but we are looking now at travel sometime between January and March 2009. Jim and I spent a half hour under the watchful eyes of Pres. Bush and Michael Chertoff's pictures while we waited to print. I must say the technician in Tampa was more than sympathetic to our long process and understood the need to get a clean set of prints. Hopefully they will not need to be re-done and we will be one step closer. This whole fingerprinting thing was a major point of stress and delay for Lily's adoption so we do not need a repeat.

What is taking so long and why do we seem to be setting a record for length of time from referral to travel for our son? We wish we knew. We were told last week there is more back and forth to go of Hung's dossier between the federal government and the local government before we will be invited for the "Giving and Receiving" ceremony that formalizes our adoption. Our patience is wearing thin but the friendship, support and good humor of our families, friends and our Holt Dong Nai adoption families group is getting us through day by day.

Please continue to keep our family, including Hung (who we will likely name John Hunter and call "Hunter") in your prayers.