FP Experience (Ciba, please post on your site)

ersheido

Registered Users (C)
Appointment Date/Time: 3/3/01 @8:00am
Location: INS Application Support Office (Salinas, CA)

Time in: 8:00am
Time out: 8:45am

Details:

The office is located in a large strip mall between a grocery
store and a dry cleaning office. The parking is not a problem
at all especially if the appointment is on a Saturday morning.

I arrived at the location around 6:30am. There were only 5
people waiting in the line outside the office. I stood there
for a few minutes, but felt too cold. I returned to my car,
which was in view of the line. I read in a book while keeping
an eye on the forming line. I was willing to sacrifice a few
spots for the sake of staying warm.

Once the line got to about 15, it was 7:30am. At this point,
I decided that the stream of people is going to make the line
much longer. Sure enough, after standing in the line for about
half an hour, there were about 45-50 people in the line where
I was number 16.

Once the doors opened at 8:00am, the people ahead of me started
streaming into the office. Two people close to the door were
checking the Notices of Action to decide what people were there
for. Out of these, they were creating two groups: one for fingerprinting
and one for other (not really sure what their deal is). The people who needed fingerprinting done were given worksheets to fill out with basic contact information, A#, and a couple of other demographics (eye color, hair, weight, etc...) I was the sixth person to be called for fingerprinting.

I was out of there by 8:45am.

The biggest problem I encountered is the incompetence of the person
who did my finger prints. The woman barely spoke any English and
couldn\'t even communicate. I was watching over her the entire time
she typed everything into the computer making sure that she was
doing everything correctly. Sure enough, she typed my address wrong
and I had to correct her on a couple of other things.
 
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Hi ersheido,

This is an exellent post. I have added it to the Personal Experiences
section. Can you tell us a little more details on the locations of
Salinas ASC (i.e., directions on how to get there)? I have never
heard of this office until recently. Thanks so much for the writing.

ciba
 
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The Salinas ASC office is located at 1954 N. Main St. in Salinas. As I mentioned in the previous post, it\'s located in a strip mall, but right across the street from Macy\'s. It\'s very easy to get there. Main St. is the "main street" in Salinas and it\'s a major artery close to highway 101 so it\'s very easy to get there.

There were three fingerprinting machines at the location with only two operating last Saturday morning. In addition to the two fingerprinting machine operators, there were three other employees there: 2 greeting people, handing out queue tickets; and the other person was calling the non-fingerprinting applicats and talking to them (not sure about the nature of the meetings).

Let me know if you need additional details.
 
No Title

HI,, I did my FP at Salinas ASC too. i had quite a different experience. you really don\'t have to go there so early. my FP was acheduled 3/3/ but i went there on 2/27 around 1:00PM ,, only 3 people in the line. we finished FPs in about 20 minutes(me and my wife). the lady who took the FPs were very patient and she double checked every print until she "likes" it(her word). the guy who checked the notice was friendly too. i gave him photocopies of my Notice, he asked if i got it from my lawyer, i said yes. actually i made copies myself and kept the original ones in case i had to redo. the point is that you can go to there anytime without waiting in line for too long. my friends had same experience too.
 
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Kevin jogged my memory about the Notice of Action. Yes, that was taken from me. I wish I had used a copy instead.

The other interesting thing is that they asked for my phone number and they wrote it on the Notice.

Kevin, since you and I did our fingerprints around the same time and in the same small office, it would be interesting to continue comparing our experiences as we move along.
 
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ersheido , have you checked with FBI regrading your FP result? Salinas is pretty quick in sending FPs. mine was done 2/27 and was sent to INS on the same day according to FBI.
 
No Title

Wow! I haven\'t checked with the FBI yet since I only did my fingerprints last Saturday (3/3). I\'ll give them a couple of days before I call.

Have you contacted the INS to verify that they entered your fingerpritns?
 
No Title

Kevin and ersheido,

Thanks for sharing you guys\' finger print experiences in Salinas.
I originally asked Kevin to write an article describing his
experience, but it looks like he missed my post.

It is indeed a great idea to compare you guy I-485s.

ciba
 
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