Dept of Homeland Security, Again

On Friday (9/7/07), we went back to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be fingerprinted again, so they can run an FBI background check on us again and issue our I-171 to us again. They are only good for 18 months, so ours is due to expire this month. This was the last of our hoops to jump through (at least for now).

We kept wondering why we needed to be fingerprinted again. Do they change? No. Wouldn't they just keep them on file and they could just run the back ground check again? I guess not. We have heard a few different reasons. Someone told us that it is illegal for them to keep our fingerprints if we don't have a criminal record. The woman at the DHS said they need to make sure that our fingerprints have not changed. She said we could have lost a finger or gotten a scar in the year. She said they need the most current fingerprints. Who knows. It went really quick, we went and had the "biometrics" taken and were out of there just after 8:00.

Now we just wait for our referal and the I-171 to come.