[valcox]

Hi all!! I'm brand new to this. We are doing things totally backwards and so I have a couple of questions. We are having our homestudy this week and we have already filed our I600A. Now, we see a kid that the agency says they might put on Hold for us, but they want to know the usual turnaround time for the Dallas office to issue the I 171H. Well, of course I can't get a hold of the office by phone, and all they would probably tell me is the usual 60 days. Anyways, I know I am rambling, but I was wondering if anyone had some concrete info on turnaround time.

[Mariais5]

I'm in FL, so I don't know if I'm much help except to say that we did everything backwards too! We actually accepted a referral BEFORE starting any of the paperchase. As far as our I171-H, we sent in 1600A on 6/30, had our fingerprints done on 7/20, and were approved on 8/23. Our home study agency gave me the phone numbers and email for our USCIS office, and they responded promptly to all of my calls. Good Luck!

[valcox]

Thank you so much. It is so good to hear someone else went backwards. I feel like it's going fast but I'm sure it's just that we are going backwards. The agency officially has now put him on hold for us - I have a SON!!! Holy cow!!! I know I will bust my behind for the paperwork!!

[SydneyRN]

We're also doing things backwards! We got our referral shortly after we sent in our application, and we just did our homestudy today. (It took forever! She said it would be about 4 hours and it was more like 6, but then again my husband can get long winded.) Anyway, we only have to have the one homestudy visit, so our homestudy should be sent in to CIS in the next three weeks. We haven't been fingerprinted yet either, but supposedly we should be getting our appointment at any time.

I'm just curious about why you were given a referral so early? I know that our agency did it because we had expressed interest in a sibling group and they said it didn't happen very often. Then they got our kids, a 2 and 3 year old. Because they're older and harder to place, they were willing to refer them to us before we were paper ready. Not that there's anything wrong with getting a referral early, just wondering what the logic is behind some people having to be paper ready and some not.

Also, if you're trying to figure out turn around times on the 171-H, try checking out the 171-H waiters list on this forum. There are people listed along with their office and when they were fingerprinted and when the homestudy went in. There was also a list of people who had graduated. I used that list to kind of figure out about how long it was taking.

Good luck!