My Unfingerprintable Wife

[toma1 10]

My wife basically does not have fingerprints. The embassy in BKK couldn't fingerprint her... and finally just gave up (but issued her visa).

She had her first biometrics appointment April 14 and received a letter dated April 16 that the FBI could not read her prints. (DOES THAT COUNT AS AN RFE ON MY TIMELINE?)

I called and talked to USCIS and they said that she should be fingerprinted with paper and ink.

She had a second appointment today and they still did an electronic scan--which I am sure will have the same result.

Had anyone seen this issue before? How long will it take for them to accept the fact that she has no prints?

[brnidokiegurl 0]

we have this prob everyday at work, most of the volumn now is due to gun licenses and the older people that cant get good prints at the local agency they can come to our office and usually our people can get the print, find someone that knows what they are doing it will work it may just take few more trys

[Lil Miss Sunshine 14]

same thing happened with me during my biometrics appointment.. after countless scans, they had to resort to manual fingerprinting (with ink and all)..

[toma1 10]

same thing happened with me during my biometrics appointment.. after countless scans, they had to resort to manual fingerprinting (with ink and all)..

How many different biometrics appointments did you have?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

While not for immigration, my husband has faced this problem for much of his life. He was a trombonist in the military and the constant keying of the trombone literally wore away his fingerprints. Good luck in getting this sorted out.

[TinTin and Samby 11]

After a biometric appointment, the electronic scans are sent to the FBI. This process is very quick - 1 to 3 days. The FBI tries to run a background records check with the fingerprints submitted to them by USCIS. If they are unable to do this due to "unreadable prints", they transmit an electronic notice to USCIS within 1-2 days. If USCIS shows that this is your first attempt, they send you a written notice with a second biometric appointment. When you go for your 2nd biometric fingerprint, the same process occurs again. ie. USCIS Service Center electronically sends the electronic scans to the FBI in 1-3 days, FBI tires to run backgrond check, If unable to process background check due to "unreadable prints" they transmit an electronic notice to USCIS. If USCIS shows that this is your second attempt, they make a note in your file and DO NOT NOTIFY YOU OF THE 2nd UNSUCCESSFUL SCAN AT THAT TIME. The USCIS will only attempt to collect your fingerprints a maximum of two times. NOTE, if you call the FBI status number, the FBI WILL ONLY TELL YOU THAT THE HAVE TRAMSMITTED THEIR REPORT TO THE USCIS. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE FBI WAS SUCCESSFUL IN USING YOUR FINGERPRINTS. The "report" trasmitted to USCIS may have been that they could not read your fingerprint scans (the second time).

When your case file finally gets to a Case officer for review and adjudication (which can be weeks or months after your second biometric scan), if they see that the FBI has notified them that their 2nd attempt to run a background check was unsuccessful because they couldn't read your fingerprint scans, then the Case Officer will issue an RFE and put the Case on hold. This RFE will require you to get a certified certificate of No Criminal Record from the police department of each and every municipality where you have resided for the previous 5 years. After you obtain these and send them back in with the FRE cover page, then your Case processing will resume.

WARNING: emotionally charged editorial note follows:

This is the stupidest process ever!!

1) the uscis service center fingerprint scanner machines have a quality check built into them to ensure that the fingerprint scans are acceptable. How is it that the USCIS service center lets you leave the biometric appointment with that quality check indicating that the scans are not satisfactory? If the quality check on those machines is indicating that the scans are acceptable, and the FBI still cant use them, then calibrate the darn machines to the right standard so they dont report false positive results!

2) why would the USCIS not notify you as soon as they receive the information back from the FBI the 2nd time that the scans are not readable? Why just note this in their file and then let the file sit for weeks or months until a case officer looks at it again and then issues an RFE, placing your case on hold??

3) Why would the process not have you report to a local police station to have the police take your fingerprints the old fashioned way so they can be sent to the FBI, rather than making you go get paper name based record checks from police departments of every municipality where you have lived for the past 5 years?

4) Just how "secure" is a secuity check if it allows the subject of the check to control which police departments to get record checks from. The only information that the USCIS has to cross check is the info that you put on the G325 form. Any new locations wouldnt be listed, so if you had a problem there, you could (theoretically) just not submit a record from that place. In addition, they only want record hecks from municpalities where you RESIDED during the past 5 years. What about any places you may have just traveled to , ie vacation, etc. No need to get records from those places so if you had a record there, the USCIS wouldnt know it. This whole "secondary records check" process is so full of holes!

Warm Regards,

Samby

[Lil Miss Sunshine 14]

same thing happened with me during my biometrics appointment.. after countless scans, they had to resort to manual fingerprinting (with ink and all)..

How many different biometrics appointments did you have?

just that one time.. but during AOS interview, i got an RFE because of the finger print scans.. i had to submit a local police clearance or something like that.

[toma1 10]

OK...

1. Would that be from the local police department here where we live in the US? Or would it be the police department in Thailand. (Thailand has a national police department, local departments do not keep such records.) It doesn't seem to make any sense to get one from Thailand because that was already submitted when the original K1 visa was issued. In any event, we have a copy of that already. She got it the month before we left.

2. Our petition was transferred to the California Service Center, not my local center. From what I have read here, CSC transfers usually don't get an interview. So what happens now?

[TinTin and Samby 11]

OK...

1. Would that be from the local police department here where we live in the US? Or would it be the police department in Thailand. (Thailand has a national police department, local departments do not keep such records.) It doesn't seem to make any sense to get one from Thailand because that was already submitted when the original K1 visa was issued. In any event, we have a copy of that already. She got it the month before we left.

2. Our petition was transferred to the California Service Center, not my local center. From what I have read here, CSC transfers usually don't get an interview. So what happens now?

Hi Toma1,

Lke I explained above, the USCIS office adjudicating your case will send you an RFE - in the case of transfers to CSC, then it will be CSC. If your case was not transferred to CSC, then it will be from the local office processing your case. Either way, you willl get the RFE and it will have instructions to gather the required additional evidence and return it withiin the time limit. Until you do , your case will be in suspension - the same as for any RFE.

Regarding the question of whether the 5 year history should include time before entry to USA, there seems to be open speculation on this. The specific language of the RFE in this situation does not exclude the time prior to entry into the USA. It simply states for a full 5 previous years. It does have language that refers to the "local police deepartment or other such govenmental body that is responsible for this". Since K visa applicants had to have these police clearances obtained and presented during the local country's US Embassy interview, there is speculation that the time period needed for k visa applicants might only need to include the time present in the USA (up to 5 years). However, there is no specific language in the RFE that states or limits this. Some people have argued that the RFE language is generic and that USCIS uses this same form letter for a variety of different types of applicants and therefore it should be understood within the context of the applicants specific situation. But again, there is no specific language in the RFE to this point, so it is just speculation.

We took the same approach that you are thinking about with regard to residences within the 5 years, but before entry to the USA. Where there were national agencies who issued country wide police clearances, we used those, rather than try to get specific local agency clearances from every town where she resided in that country. My rational for following this approach was because we were basically submitting copies of the same police clearance requirements that we had previously submitted as part of the I-129F process, PLUS local county sherriff clearances from each place of residence in the USA since arriving here.

We have not heard back from the USCIS on our submittal for this RFE yet, so I can't tell you from personal experience whether my approach was acceptable to them or not.

Good luck.

Warm Regards,

Samby

Edited May 8, 2009 by TinTin and Samby

[MISSINGYOU 0]

May I ask if the fingerprint asked for at the biometric is any difference than the one asked for at the applicant's homeland at the time of their visa interview? I mean in terms of machine , quality capatured and procedure? My husband had some trouble at his interview in China. The machine said it couldn't read his prints too, but after a few tries, the officers said it was fine.

[Dave_Thao 0]

We just returned from the local police station to pick up Thao's letter of no criminal record. We had the same problems with her fingerprints being rejected twice. Only it took 8 months for them to send the RFE. The RFE stated in bold that they only needed letters from places she lived in the USA not from Vietnam. I hope this satifies CSC and they give Thao her GC.

Good luck to all