[vickibunni]

Has anyone used the minneapolis BCIS or whatever htey call it these days recently? If so how long did it take to get a fingerprint appt after the homsetudy was sent in and also how long for an approval from date of fingerprinting? The last tiem we adopted I know it was taking kind of a long time due to some meidcal issues with on of the employees.

Thanks,
VIcki

[lotterino]

Well, it's been a year and a half since we did it so not real recent, but you can have your fingerprints done before the homestudy is done. We sent in the application without the homestudy and about 2 weeks later we received our receipt and the fingerprinting information. It was about 30 days after we sent in the homestudy that we received our I-171H. Hope this helps.

[curlyqgyrl]

We sent in our I-600 October 5th and recieved notice to go get fingerprinted October 15th. Our homestudy wasn't (and still isn't!) sent in. Soneone else on here that went through Minneapolis had a similar time line as mine.

[vickibunni]

When we did this last time abotu 2 years ago exactly. Oud social worked even sopke to the lady that takes care of this and they said they would NOT let you have your fingerprints done without your homestudy being completed. That is so strange. Are you sure this is right?? Is there anywhere to cal lto verify this? Last time it took a veyr long time to ge tthe letter and apt, but once we got that it only took about a week for our 171h approval. I am so confused now about what we should do. I really want to get paper ready ASAP.

THanks,
Vicki

[becky]

I would definitely send in the I600A without the home study. The worst that will happen, is that they will send you a letter stating that you won't get your fingerprints done until they get the home study....the best that could happen is that you will get an appointment and be on your way!

[curlyqgyrl]

I put a note in with my I600a saying that the homestudy will be there at a later date, and they still let me get fingerprinted. As I said, I got finger printed the 15th, and my homestudy won't be there until probebly next week.

[sespan]

Our case was submitted to the Minneapolis office last December and the entire process took 5 weeks. In fact, we received the invitation for fingerprinting about 2 weeks after submitting the I-600A, before the homestudy was completed. Following submission of the homestudy, the remainder of the process took 2 weeks.

Our social worker's prediction was within a couple of days of how long it would take, and it was explained that the MN office is reasonably predictable, with pretty even staffing.

Duane

[melgrant]

We submitted our I-600A before we our homestudy was done as well. Our homestudy just had to "catch up" to our I-600A. This was in January of this year.

[sesmom]

We submitted our I-600A on 10/4, received our letter to get fingerprinted 10/19 and got fingerprinted 10/22 all without our homestudy. We probably will get our homestudy to them sometime next week. The Minneapolis office doesn't require you to have your homestudy in order to get fingerprinted so if I were you I'd send it in now so you can get the process started.

This is the same thing we did with our adoption last year and we had no problems. We just sent our homestudy when it was completed and we received our 171-H about a month after it was sent.

Good luck!

[brookeinmn]

We also fingerprinted before our homestudy was sent in. That was in March of this year. We sent in the 1600A and the homestudy just had to link up with it along the way. The 171-H took about 4 weeks for us.

[walnutmeg]

We submitted our I600A to the Bloomington, MN BCIS in May, got fingerprinted on July 7, Sent in our homestudy on August 12 and didn't get our I171H until October 13th! We were told that there were two turnovers in staff during this time and that's why it took so long.

[tmlewis]

Well........as most of you know.......we are an exception to the rule! I'm glad that most folks have received their 171 H in a reasonable time frame. We are still waiting after a year......but we have extenuating circumstances and were misdirected by the first agency we used........so waiting still on the decision of the appeal sent in by our current agency and attorney.......keeping all of our fingers, toes and every other body part crossed that we receive word soon! It has been 6 or 7 weeks since we were to have the decision! ARGH......I'm not being very patient here as it seems like our life is on HOLD until this government agency tells us what they want to decide. If they are going to deny us......then tell us.....if not.....then TELL US! It is HARD to wait and we have tried to be patient! Melodie

[tricecm]

The woman who does that in Mpls is outstanding. She's doing well now, but part of the delays for some of you might be that she was getting treated for some type of cancer for a while and was way down to part time.

We just did our second adoption and got our approval in March. I STRONGLY suggest that you wait to submit your I600a with your homestudy. Here's why: we submitted ours without it, and it just sat there. She said they won't even look at it without the homestudy. When we got our homestudy report, we fedexed both documents together (had to do the I600a over because it was in the middle of a huge pile and not to be found). Once she received both documents at the same time, she turned it around in 24 hours---no lie. She is a wonderful person who is so sweet to adoptive parents.

Given what she said to us a few months ago, there is no point whatsoever to mail in your I600a without the homestudy report. Wait and send them together and it will get very rapid attention.