Stamping Experience At Boston
I completed Passport stamping for me and my wife yesterday. gcinfo1971 has summarized it pretty well. I thought I'd add my experience too.
Fixed appointment through InfoPass for both me and my wife at 1:30pm. There was a pretty long queue just get to the counter in the room. I just went up the security guy and told him I had an appointment for 1:30. It was exactly 1:30 then and so he said that I was next and flagged me to the counter (I didn't look at the people in the line 'coz I'm sure they were cursin' me!!!). At this counter they issue you a token and ask you to get the fingerprints done. Once the fingerprints are done, you have to wait for your token number to be called. I believe I waited for about 1 hour. The guy who took our application was prety friendly(THANK GOD!!!) and joked with me a bit. He finished our paperwork pretty quick - the actual time he spent to stamp our Passports was 20 mts. Told us that the Green Card would arrive in 6-8 months. I would say that my experience was pretty good.
We just took the Approval Notices we got in the mail - I didn't see it written 'Courtesy Copy' anywhere on it. I made sure that I had the front-face style photographs and my wife didn't have any ear-rings or nose-rings in her photograph(but she did have a chain). Like gcinfo1971 said, if there are any photograph issues, there's a photo facility in the room itself. I did notice a couple of people having to go there - one brought the older photos, and the officer didn't like another person's. It basically depends on the officer - if he's grumpy he might give you a rougher ride.
My advice (hope it makes sense) is to fix the appointment in the afternoon (1:00-2:00 would be the best). The reason is that they close at 3:00, and they have to make sure that they process all applicants before that. So they might put a few more officers depending on the number of peope left. So you know you'll be out by 3:00!!! The only hitch is that the counter where they issue the tokens is open only till 2:00pm, so you have to reach there by then. Whereas, if it is the morning, you might have to wait a lot longer.
Hope this wasn't TOO BORING !!!!!