really????

So apparently, the people at my local police station were wrong. It's not that after three tries the FBI just goes ahead and accepts fingerprints with a low quality characteristics. It's actually that after making me submit my bad-ass fingerprints three times they go ahead and reject my attempts to get my police record. This past Saturday I received back in the mail all 5 sets of the fingerprints I submitted (1 the first time, 2 each the second and third times) with a nice note. The note reads:

It appears the quality of your fingerprints will not improve. Unfortunately, they do no possess the "feature vectors" which must be present to complete a fingerprint search of the FBI Fingerprint Identification Record System. Should a fingerprint search be required for the purpose of licensing, employment or immigration, you should contact the agency requiring the fingerprinting to determine alternate procedures.

My fingerprints don't possess the "feature vectors". I feel so dirty.

So following the note's instructions, I emailed the New Zealand Embassy in Washington. First, actually, I checked Immigration New Zealand's web site to see if they had "alternate procedures" listed. And it seemed like I had found the "alternate procedures" right here in the first paragraph. It says I need a statutory declaration and corroborating information attesting to my good character. That's what I ultimately emailed the NZ Embassy about, because what the heck is a statutory declaration, and what kind of corroborating information do I need?

The response I received was not so helpful. They told me to call the FBI to find out what to do to get my fingerprints accepted. Even though I made completely clear in my email why the FBI wasn't going to provide me with a police certificate, they wanted me to check again. So I did. It was a quick call. The very nice woman at the FBI CJIS Division told me I need to go back to Immigration New Zealand and ask what to do since the FBI will NOT give me my record. Sounds like a lot of back and forth, eh?

All that, to get the final response from the NZ Embassy saying I just need a statutory declaration stating all the above. Great. Thanks for the help.

Before writing back again to this kind soul in the NZ Embassy, I found out that just last week the requirements for attaining residency through a NZ partner have changed. The forms are all different now and everything. Yikes. Good thing I saw that on the Expats in New Zealand Yahoo Group, or I wouldn't have known that now, my husband needs to get his FBI record as well! Let's hope his fingers have feature vectors.

I'm not going to bother writing back to the NZ Embassy, because perusing the new application forms I found out that a "statutory declaration" is just a letter that's been notarized.