[ericamoore]

I keep having meltdowns here. As you know my agency is still reviewing my homestudy it has been approved but for some reason they just have not completed it and sent it in, well I filed my I600A back in April (as instructed to do by my agent) and it was stamped on 4-29-08, we got fingerprinted on May 16 and they have just been waiting on my homestudy. Well there is a 90 day time frame on filing the 1600A, and that means on 7-29-08 it will expire. Will I lose the 820.00 that I already sent in or what will happen. I can not get in touch with BCIS by phone only thru email and it takes up to 3 days for them to respond. Please help.

[votemom]

this sounds very unreasonable. i would definitely make myself heard. go above your social worker's head.

it's one thing to have to wait and wait and wait for the russian government, but another thing entirely to not have your agency working efficiently for you.

[Jessi_76]

Gosh, Erica: I just wanted to say how sorry I am. There are always gong to be ups and downs and little glitches in the process, but this is a hold-up of SOMEONE YOU ARE PAYING to do a homestudy. Most agencies have them done in one-month, give or take. There's no excuse. My USCIS office in Philly does allow phone calls - what office are you going through? Also, I'd write a letter to the director of the agency handling your HS to politely inform them of the delays and hassles your SW is causing...

Best of luck!!
xoxo

[jessibird]

Yeah I agree with the others-that is NOT OK. THere isn't much we can do with countries and the gov't, but your SW should be doing the job your paying her for.

[MominPA]

I am so sorry that you are having such a hard time. It is totally uncalled for that you still don't have your home study after 4.5 months.

We handed in our last document the end of January had a draft of our homestudy emailed to us for review a couple of days later. Our home study agency then sent it to our placement agency for their review. By February 10th we had our home study both the USCIS and the Russian one. Our home study agency was located near USCIS in Philly and they dropped it off in person.

We were suppose to travel March 11 on our first trip, but we didn't have our USCIS approval so we had to wait. We called the office in Philly daily to see if they could help us out and pushed us ahead, but they refused. Our agency even tried calling. We got our approval on March 16th. We travel on March 28th on less then a weeks notice. USCIS was very unsympathic and would not budge. To this day I could never understand how the person I was dealing with could be so cold hearted.

[ericamoore]

Thanks for all your replies. It is the Atlanta office, I called and called and they will only respond to emails within 24-48 hour time period. I just don't know what to do something isn't right, I don't understand how someone can proclaim to be a christian and treat there clients the way I have been treated. I never seen this coming. I am at there mercy and the agent who was referred to me by several people in my community has totally not returned my phone calls for a solid month now. I have only been in touch with the home office. I just don't understand. The reason why I picked this particular agency was because it was christian ministry and I felt safe. This was a hard decision to make because I was counting on her to make my dreams come true. Now she is completely ignoring my phone calls, mind you she is available to accept calls she communicates with the agency. I just wished she would do the right thing and call me back, at least she should have been up front with me in the beginning instead of leading me on. All I can do is keep praying and hope for a miracle, because right now I feel as if I am stuck and at there mercy on there time.

[MominPA]

Erica,

I went back and read your previous posts. Was your homestudy arleady approved by your homestudy agency but they are waiting to release it to you once your placing agency reviews it? Are they the same or different entities? I would a demand a copy from your social worker and get it submitted to USCIS. I would also send a note with it saying that you won't be using the agency you listed on the 600A. The home study is your property and you have the right to it.

The home study doesn't need to be the exact same as the one submitted to Russia. I know in our case it wasn't.

As for your agency I would RUN AWAY from them before you lose any more money. If communication is this bad in the beginning how bad will it be when you really need the support of your agency. What happens when you hand over thousands of dollars once you are paper ready waiting for a referral or when you are in country and a problem arises.

Are they accredited in Russia? If they aren't that would be a red flag for me. Did you get any other references from other people then the one whom referred you to them.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I have been around these adoption board a long time (since 1998) and I have seen many families get ripped off agencies including "Christian" agencies. Right now $820 seems to be a lot of money which it is, however there have been families whom lost tens of thousands of dollars and still don't have their children.

I wish you the best.

[sak9645]

You need to call the director of your homestudy agency, indicate the fact that you've been approved and that your I-600A is expiring, and see if he/she can get things moving.

Sharon

[Bcelli]

Can you go to the SW's office in person to retrieve your home study? If so, do so then overnight it registered mail to Atlanta. When we were going through one of our adoptions - I forget which - I called several different USCIS offices (INS at the time) and got the EXACT same answering machine message at every office. All over the country! Getting an actual phone number is like acquiring state secrets or something. Once we had an agent assigned to our case, she sent us a phone number, but trying to get through for general information was impossible. Keep the faith. We always get ticked about these hold-ups and glitches when in the end we see it was God's way of telling us "OUR" child wasn't yet ready for us to come. Since you are a person of faith, I highly recommend prayer - and FIRM ACTION.

[ericamoore]

Yes my homestudy was completed by a separate agency that specializes specifically in homestudies. They are not linked with the adoption agency that I am using. The social worker that prepared the homestudy emailed it to me a month ago for my agency to review, and no one has responded. I talked with the homestudy agency and they are just going to send it in as is to BCIS and hope they will accept it. I just don't have a good feeling about any of this.