EXPIRED FINGERPRINTS


So now we're running into the problem that all of our paperwork is expiring, due to the bureaucratic delays in Guatemala.

We started this process with a "homestudy", which is the social worker review of our house, lives, etc. And in that the social worker says that we were looking for a child 12 months and younger. Well, on 12/02/2006 Maria turns 13 months, so that means that our homestudy has "expired".

Performing an international adoption is like a marathon of paperwork, through various agencies (state agencies, federal agencies, private agencies, international governments, etc.). And every piece of paper seems to have a different expiration date.

For example, about 16 months ago we had to go get fingerprinted by CIS (the agency formally known as INS). And as it turns out, the CIS fingerprints "expire" after 15 months. So we had to go renew those. Now you're probably thinking like I did, how do fingerprints expire? Acid? Burns? Too much Bar-B-Que?

Actually, what happens is that CIS runs these fingerprints through the FBI files to ensure that we're not bank robbers, kidnappers or terrorists. Which makes sense that CIS would want to check that after a period of time. Because of course, while we're waiting for word from Guatemala, we're going to kill an afternoon by knocking over our local Citibank branch.

But why not use the same fingerprints that they received 15 months ago? Are they really thinking that those changed?

Of course CIS has their process, and taking a(nother) copy of our fingerprints starts this process. But what a delay. And a pain.

More specifics in the next post.