Fingerprint Fun
On Tuesday, January 29 at 2:00, Dave and I had our fingerprinting appointment at the Application Support Center of the Citizenship and Immigration Service. Luckily we live in Charlotte, which is the only ASC for the whole state of North Carolina. So there were tons of people there! We entered this big room, showed the letter we'd received from CIS as well as our photo ID, then were told to wait in another line after filling out a form. There were rows and rows of chairs on either side of "the other line" and they were filled with people... families with small children, men in suits, women with interpreters... and they were all different nationalities. We quickly realized that not only were adoptive families here to be fingerprinted, but also immigrants from all walks of life! We saw folks from Eastern Europe, Mexico, Africa, and Central/South America. It was a trip (no pun intended)!
After we turned in our form from the second line, we were given a number and told to sit. Dave had "709" and they were calling out "671"!! So for the next hour, we people-watched. There was a TV on in the front of the room broadcasting a soap opera, babies were crying to be fed, husbands and wives were talking to each other, so the fingerprint techs had to yell to be heard. "680!" "681!" We counted five or six stations and it took 7-8 minutes per person. So even though they were moving at a pretty good clip, we didn't get called back until about 2:40. Whereas they used to press your fingertips onto an inkpad and make fingerprint cards (I saw some castoff ink rollers and dried up inkpads in the corner), now each station was a fingerprint computer. The gloved technician took my fingers, wiped each with a water-dampened paper towel, then pressed-and-rolled my fingertip onto a small glass window. It looked like the glass window barcode scanners you see at grocery stores. And viola! A scanned image of my fingertip appeared on the computer monitor. The computer would either say "Accept" or "Scan Again" depending on how good the image was. So, for each hand, they scanned all four fingers together, then the thumb, then each individual finger. It was fascinating. My tech said, "Good luck with your adoption!" and sent me on my way. I drove away at 3:00. What an interesting hour of my life!
After we turned in our form from the second line, we were given a number and told to sit. Dave had "709" and they were calling out "671"!! So for the next hour, we people-watched. There was a TV on in the front of the room broadcasting a soap opera, babies were crying to be fed, husbands and wives were talking to each other, so the fingerprint techs had to yell to be heard. "680!" "681!" We counted five or six stations and it took 7-8 minutes per person. So even though they were moving at a pretty good clip, we didn't get called back until about 2:40. Whereas they used to press your fingertips onto an inkpad and make fingerprint cards (I saw some castoff ink rollers and dried up inkpads in the corner), now each station was a fingerprint computer. The gloved technician took my fingers, wiped each with a water-dampened paper towel, then pressed-and-rolled my fingertip onto a small glass window. It looked like the glass window barcode scanners you see at grocery stores. And viola! A scanned image of my fingertip appeared on the computer monitor. The computer would either say "Accept" or "Scan Again" depending on how good the image was. So, for each hand, they scanned all four fingers together, then the thumb, then each individual finger. It was fascinating. My tech said, "Good luck with your adoption!" and sent me on my way. I drove away at 3:00. What an interesting hour of my life!
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