I must give credit where credit is due

I have never been a big fan of government, as some of my previous posts clearly reveal. Government bureaucracy is often too bloated, can't get out of its own way, and often does more harm than good even when they're trying to do good. But every now and then, government forces me to qualify these blanket views. My experience at the Virginia DMV a few months ago was one of those times (in and out in less than an hour). Another of these experiences happened today.

As part of our international adoption process, my wife and I had to go to a DHS fingerprinting facility to get our prints into the national system to verify that we aren't axe murderers or anything before we adopt internationally. I fully expected this little chore to take the better part of forever, but was prepared to be patient as we were cycled from line to line. But then God intervened.

We arrived at about 8:40am, and we were done by 9am. We had only one form to fill out, and as soon as were done with the forms, we were immediately taken back to be printed. It was efficient and routine. I'm pleasantly shocked.

So I must give credit where credit is due. I have heard god-awful things about dealing with INS, and how the immigration system is hopelessly broken. And perhaps in areas like citizenship and work permits for immigrants, this is still the case. But our limited experience with Immigration up 'til now hasn't been inconvenient or self-defeating. So bravo to the Feds. And bravo to my wife for figuring out how to go about what we've had to do to kickstart the adoption process!