[source] https://depositphotos.com/5136991/stock-photo-criminal-in-handcuffs.html
When my employer informed me that I would need to get fingerprinted to continue to have good standing at my job, I was disheartened thinking that I would have to fly back to the USA to accomplish this. I have been enjoying living and working remotely in foreign countries over the last year.
I work with sensitive information over a VOIP phone and for this reason my employer requires criminal background checks. I have had this done before but always when I am living in the USA. There are specific organizations in the US that perform criminal background checks on a routine basis. This is the only way I have ever done it. You just go into these offices and have it done. They send it all electronically and all you have to do is walk in with 2 forms of ID and pay and give fingerprints and leave.
At the time of this occurrence I was living in Mexico.
In Mexico I called around to different agencies in the town in Nayarit where I was living in order to determine who does this process with in Mexico. Lets just say I was not met with a lot of enthusiasm in terms of helping me out in the process. I ended up getting sent to a myriad of different places, none of which were helpful. My favorite place that I wonder if I was sent there as some kind of disrespect to Gringos was the morgue. They told me that yes sometimes they have to get the huellas from the deceased. Although I was tired of the process, I was very much alive, and I ended up with out official prints there as well.
My employer suggested that I contact the FBI to determine what is necessary for fingerprinting abroad. I received no response after repeated inquiries and so I decided to do some investigation with the companies that actually do the fingerprinting itself.
I determined the specific card that is used in my situation and then I made a copy of that empty fingerprinting card.
The next step, since I couldn’t find any one who could officially do the prints for me, including the embassy office, was to figure out how to do it myself. So, I watched several you tube videos on how to obtain quality prints as specified by the Federal Beaurou of Investigation. This was not as simple as it seems. You do have to obtain the prints in a specific way for them to be usable. Essentially you have to apply the ink by rolling your finger over the ink pad then apply it to the paper in the same manner.
Then there are direct thumb prints and direct four finger prints with out rolling.
The only way that I was able to find apart from going to the only Embassy in Mexico that will do fingerprinting (Mexico City; which would have been a tremendous cost of time and money) was to go to a law office that has a public notary and perform the fingerprinting in front of them. After which they stamp the paper with an official Mexican government seal.
After 1 month of waiting to see if the FBI accepted I was relieved to find out that they did.