FYI, my wife and I went for our stamping today at the Dallas service center.
Our Infopass appointments were for 9:30am and 10:00am. We showed up at about 8:50am and at that time there were already about 50 people waiting in 3 lines, all outside (fortunately the weather was pretty nice here today).
There was one line for people with 9:00am appointments and another for people with 9:30am appointments. The third line was for people without appointments from what I can tell. The officer sent both my wife and myself to the 9:30 line and told us that they would probably want to process both of us together. Other lines formed later, presumably for people with later appointment times.
These lines were just to get a number to get inside the building. It took about 1.5 hours to get to the window (still outside) where we showed our Infopass printouts and confirmed that we had our photos, approval notice and passports (without having to show them). In between the first and second lines they let a few people from the "no appointments" line go through.
After passing through security we got inside the building at about 10:20am or so. Our number was called about 1.5 hours later (our kids weren't with us but we noticed while we were waiting that the tv above us went through Barney, Dragon Tales, Sesame Street and something that I didn't recognize
).
Once called, the officer processed my wife and myself at the same window, taking our approval notices, photos, fingerprints (right index finger x2), 2 signatures and stamped our passports with the I-551 stamp. He took my EAD card but told me he didn't need our H visas (I guess I'll destroy those). This all took about 10 minutes so we were there just over 3 hours overall...
The officer also confirmed that nothing further needed to be done for my kids since they had received their physical cards already.
FWIW, we had redone my wife's passport photos because she was smiling in the first set and the online instructions specify that subjects should have a "closed mouth". I also thought that I'd specifically read somewhere that obvious smiling was a no-no. The officer said that it was probably ok if she was smiling but IMO it sounds like it was probably better that we redid hers just in case. My wife is annoyed with me though because she liked her first set of pictures better
.
The officer said that our cards could take up to a year but that they could also show up fairly quickly...
I'll keep half an eye on my online case status / LUD -- many people have reported seeing this change within 1 week of stamping (and many people seem to be getting their cards within a few weeks lately).
As we left the building there seemed to be hardly anyone left waiting outside and I got the impression that they weren't going to be doing too many more appointments past about 12:30pm or so. It *might* have been possible for someone to show up at about noon with no appointment and get through fairly quickly. As others have mentioned, if you can, take the earliest available time for your appointment -- this probably could have saved us at least an hour.
Also fyi, on the way out we noticed that there is a place that does passport photos about 100 meters away from the USCIS building.
Hope this helps someone!
ETA
Our Infopass appointments were for 9:30am and 10:00am. We showed up at about 8:50am and at that time there were already about 50 people waiting in 3 lines, all outside (fortunately the weather was pretty nice here today).
There was one line for people with 9:00am appointments and another for people with 9:30am appointments. The third line was for people without appointments from what I can tell. The officer sent both my wife and myself to the 9:30 line and told us that they would probably want to process both of us together. Other lines formed later, presumably for people with later appointment times.
These lines were just to get a number to get inside the building. It took about 1.5 hours to get to the window (still outside) where we showed our Infopass printouts and confirmed that we had our photos, approval notice and passports (without having to show them). In between the first and second lines they let a few people from the "no appointments" line go through.
After passing through security we got inside the building at about 10:20am or so. Our number was called about 1.5 hours later (our kids weren't with us but we noticed while we were waiting that the tv above us went through Barney, Dragon Tales, Sesame Street and something that I didn't recognize
).Once called, the officer processed my wife and myself at the same window, taking our approval notices, photos, fingerprints (right index finger x2), 2 signatures and stamped our passports with the I-551 stamp. He took my EAD card but told me he didn't need our H visas (I guess I'll destroy those). This all took about 10 minutes so we were there just over 3 hours overall...
The officer also confirmed that nothing further needed to be done for my kids since they had received their physical cards already.
FWIW, we had redone my wife's passport photos because she was smiling in the first set and the online instructions specify that subjects should have a "closed mouth". I also thought that I'd specifically read somewhere that obvious smiling was a no-no. The officer said that it was probably ok if she was smiling but IMO it sounds like it was probably better that we redid hers just in case. My wife is annoyed with me though because she liked her first set of pictures better
.The officer said that our cards could take up to a year but that they could also show up fairly quickly...
I'll keep half an eye on my online case status / LUD -- many people have reported seeing this change within 1 week of stamping (and many people seem to be getting their cards within a few weeks lately).As we left the building there seemed to be hardly anyone left waiting outside and I got the impression that they weren't going to be doing too many more appointments past about 12:30pm or so. It *might* have been possible for someone to show up at about noon with no appointment and get through fairly quickly. As others have mentioned, if you can, take the earliest available time for your appointment -- this probably could have saved us at least an hour.
Also fyi, on the way out we noticed that there is a place that does passport photos about 100 meters away from the USCIS building.
Hope this helps someone!
ETA
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