Tip to those who redo FP in Los Angeles

[jack.k 1]

As I'm waiting (and waiting) for the oath date, thought I'd give a tip to those of you who file in Los Angeles that I never came across on the net when I was applying. I hope this will be useful to some people.

If your fingerprints gets rejected the first time and you go redo it, there is a chance that it will be rejected again like in my case.

Of course they won't tell you to give you a chance to correct it, it comes as a surprise during your interview. You still do the interview, just pass it and they will give you a sheet with further information to correct the FP issue.

The sheet is from 2005 and useless. Long story short, you will have to go to the Sheriff's headquarters building in the city of Norwalk, 70 miles away in my case. They photocopy your driver's license and no fingerprint is needed; go to the nearby shopping center for like an hour, come back and they give you a paper after they research your criminal background, find nothing, and state as such. It costs $42. Cash only. Then you mail that $42 piece of paper to your interviewer/officer which then approves your application.

You don't go to your local police department. Not even LAPD headquarters. I visited these places. They don't do it. It must be Norwalk, as I finally learned when speaking to a nice officer at LAPD HQ. I hope USCIS updates their 2005 instruction sheets and not aggravate people even more. But in case they haven't, this is what needed to be done as of early 2012.

If you go redo your fingerprints, I'd suggest calling and trying to find out if it passed the second time so this won't come as a surprise and you'll have this done by your interview date to avoid any further delays.

Edited March 17, 2012 by jack.k