Still Waiting to Finalize

Samedh had his biometrics appointment this afternoon, so his name can be corrected on his green card. We submitted the I-90 form a few weeks ago before the fee increased, and got his appointment very quickly. Unfortunately, USCIS is not able to issue a new green card to Samedh until his adoption is finalized in the local court. Nevertheless, they still took Samedh's photo and one fingerprint in order to get the paperwork started. Once we receive the adoption decree from the judge, we'll mail it to our local USCIS processing office so they can complete the process and issue a new card. They've given us 87 days to provide the information.

The only reason we filed the I-90 in the first place is so Samedh's green card could be corrected so it matches his Indian passport. We are still hoping to travel to India in January or February 2008, and wanted to have Samedh's green card corrected before then. That seems to be the quickest and cheapest option for him to be "paper ready" for international travel. The other option, as suggested by the Immigration officer this afternoon, is to wait for the adoption to be finalized and then apply for a US passport. Not sure how long that would take, but then we'd also have to apply for an Indian visa for Samedh. More forms, more fees. I guess that's how it always goes. At this time, though, it looks like we'll just wait to hear from the judge and then get the green card corrected.

According to our local probate court this morning, they currently have a couple hundred files pending, so we are not to expect a quick turn around. It sounds like our local court may schedule adoption finalization hearings in November, during National Adoption Month. We don't want to wait that long, so have decided to finalize via mail. We still don't know when we'll receive the adoption decree in the mail, but hopefully it will be sometime this year. The biggest thing is to finalize this year so we can get the adoption tax credit on our 2007 taxes. If we have to postpone our trip to India by a few months, it's really no big deal.