The Biometrics Appointment

By Victoria

Well whoops, we forgot to post after the actual biometrics appointment. It took place on November 4th; we arrived at the place a little early expecting there to be a line for security at the door since it's an official USCIS Government outpost building, but security was actually a bit slack. It was just a couple people at a receiving desk who asked to see Colin's appointment notice, then gave him a 1-page form to fill out with his basic information. There was no metal detector walkthrough or X-ray scanner for bags. You're also supposedly not allowed to have cell phones inside the building, but no one asked us. The people at the desk barely even looked at me and didn't seem to care whether I would've had anything potentially prohibited. When we took a seat for Colin to fill out his form, I actually heard the desk person ask someone entering if they had a phone with them...neither Colin nor I were even asked that question. Oh well!

Once Colin was done with the form, we got into a line that takes you to another desk where a man was briefly looking over the information, checking IDs, handing out numbered tickets, then directing people to the waiting area. This place actually reminded me exactly of the DMV -- you get a number, then wait forever to get called for something that will take about 5 minutes. We waited for about an hour and a half, well past Colin's appointment time!

Anyway, once your number gets called, you go into a secondary waiting room that's walled off with glass from the larger waiting room. I could see that the employees' desks were in there and they had cameras mounted to take photos for ID cards, fingerprint scanners, etc. Colin was luckily first in this secondary line, so it didn't take long.
He told me afterward there was a snafu with recording his home country; the woman taking his information clearly didn't have a good grasp on geography, because she kept pointing to where he wrote "Northern Ireland" and said "You wrote you're from Ireland! You're from Ireland!" even after Colin tried to explain Northern Ireland is part of the UK and showed her his United Kingdom passport. Awkward. And then he said she wrote "UN" in the country code instead of "UK"! Guess he's a citizen of the United Nations now...

So that was our adventure just to get Colin's fingerprints scanned and another photo taken. We haven't heard anything at all from the government since then.