How to adopt a child out of the country

Adopt a Child Internationally | Homeland Security

Intercountry adoption is when U.S. citizens adopt children from overseas. When children are adopted from outside the United States, they must go through an immigration process. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determines the eligibility and suitability of prospective adoptive parents (individuals) looking to adopt and the eligibility of children to immigrate to the United States.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website is the best place to start learning about intercountry adoption.

Visit these webpages for more information:

Before You Start introduces the intercountry adoption process.
Immigration through Adoption describes the intercountry adoption-related immigration processes.

Additionally, visit the U.S. Department of State Intercountry Adoption website for more information about individual country requirements, alerts and information about adoption service providers.

When children are adopted from outside the United States, they must go through an immigration process. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determines the eligibility and suitability of prospective adoptive parents (individuals) looking to adopt and the eligibility of children to immigrate to the United States.

U.S. immigration law provides three different processes for children to immigrate to the United States based on their intercountry adoption. Children may only immigrate under one of the three processes and they must meet all of the requirements for the selected process.

If you are a U.S. citizen adopting children internationally, you may use either the Hague or the Orphan (non Hague) process. Under these processes, a child may immigrate immediately after the adoption or may immigrate to the U.S. to be adopted here. The adoption process that may be available will depend in part on whether a child is from country that is party to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention). Depending on what country you choose to adopt from will determine which process you will adopt by.
The third process applies to U.S. citizens or permanent residents who may petition for their adoptive children through a Family-Based Petition.

Tips

Become as familiar as you can with the intercountry adoption laws, processes, resources and contacts.

An adoption service provider will be able to help you arrange an international adoption placement, but cannot represent you before USCIS or advise you on the legal aspects of a child's immigration. An attorney can provide legal advice or representation for adoption proceedings.

USCIS National Benefits Center (NBC) has a Call Center to assist you during your adoption process.

Call 877-424-8374 Monday – Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time
Email [email protected]

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Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman

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International Adoption Process – How to Adopt from Another Country – Considering Adoption

If you have decided to pursue international adoption to grow your family, you now may be wondering exactly how to adopt a child from another country. While parts of the process are similar to what you would find in a domestic adoption, other parts are more complex because you are cooperating with the government of another country.
Your international adoption process will ultimately depend on where you choose to adopt, but all international adoptions must follow certain guidelines and procedures.
You adoption experience will be different depending on whether the country you adopt from is party to the Hague Adoption Convention, and the international adoption processes for both Hague and non-Hague countries are outlined in the sections below.

Choose a Country

The first step in this process is deciding from where you would like to adopt. Once you have selected a country, you will be able to narrow down your search for adoption agencies.
When you are choosing a country to adopt from, consider the following:

Your preferences in a child – The types of available children vary from country to country. If you are interested in adopting a child of a certain age or gender, start with some research on the children commonly available for adoption in a particular country.

The country’s eligibility requirements – You must meet the eligibility criteria of the United States as well as the foreign country, and some countries have much more stringent adoption guidelines than others. When you are considering a country, make sure you will be allowed to adopt there.

Costs – The expenses of your adoption can differ based on the country, usually as a result of travel costs. For an example of these differences, you can view the costs of an adoption with Bethany Christian Services by using their Adoption Fee Calculator.

Culture of the country – The culture of your child’s country of birth is an important part of who your child is, and you will want to welcome aspects of that culture into your home and family.

Choose a Professional

Different agencies operate in different areas, so knowing what country you want to adopt from will help you to choose an adoption professional. Your professional should be Hague-accredited, as per the Universal Accreditation Act of 2012, and authorized by the country where you wish to adopt.
During your international adoption, your professional may assist you by:

Providing support, education, guidance and case management
Communicating with the country where you adopt
Performing or overseeing your home study and post-placement assessments
Identifying a child for a potential match
Carrying out the termination of parental rights, if necessary

Complete Your Home Study

Your home study provider must also meet Hague Convention requirements, regardless of whether you adopt from a Hague country. This process can take up to three months or more from beginning to end, so it is recommended that you begin as soon as possible.
The international adoption home study is not too different from the domestic adoption home study: you will need to collect some personal documents for your social worker, pass a home inspection, and go through an interview process. The country you adopt from may have additional requirements as well, and your home study provider will inform you of what to expect.

Apply for Adoption Eligibility

Before you can bring a child from another country to the United States, you must first be deemed eligible to adopt by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
To become eligible to adopt, you will most likely be filling out the Form I-800A or I-600A, which you will send to USCIS. From there, they will ensure that you fit all of the United States requirements for being an adoptive parent. These forms fulfill the game general purpose, but which one you fill out will depend on whether or not you are adopting from a Hague Convention country:

Hague eligibility – To become eligible to adopt a child in a Hague Convention Country, you must file a Form I-800A with USCIS. In addition, you will need to send your personal information and completed home study. IYour eligibility is valid for 15 months.

Non-Hague eligibility – If you are participating in a non-Hague adoption, you can file Form I-600A before you find a child to adopt, or if you have already identified a child, you can fill out the Form I-600. It is most common for parents to file Form 1-600A, and approval for this form is good for 18 months.

Once you have been cleared by USCIS, your adoption service provider will be able to send your Form I-800A or Form I-600A, along with your dossier, to the country where you wish to adopt. From there, the will determine your eligibility by their laws and guidelines.

Wait for a Referral

After you have received approval from the United States and your chosen country, the wait for a match with a child begins.
Once an opportunity presents itself, the foreign country’s authority will contact your adoption service provider, who will then contact you. In some countries, you will receive a referral before you travel to the country, while in others you may be matched with a child after you arrive.
When you receive a referral, it will usually include the following:

Name and picture
Date of birth
Medical information
Relevant psychological and social information
Reasons the child has been matched with you

In most cases, you will have a certain amount of time to accept or refuse the referral. If you are concerned that you will not be able to meet the needs of a child, you can usually refuse the referral with no consequence. However, refusing a referral without a justifiable cause can sometimes make it difficult to continue pursuing adoption in the same country.
Once you accept a referral, you can begin preparing to travel and meet the child.

Apply for the Child to be Eligible to Adopt

After you’ve been matched with a child, you can begin sending your next application to USCIS. While your Form I-800A or I-600A determined if you were eligible to adopt, the Form I-800 or I-600 will ensure that your child is eligible to immigrate to the United States.
If your child meets the criteria to be adoptable by USCIS, you will be able to apply for your child’s visa. To begin the application process, you must fill out the DS-260 form to be reviewed by the foreign country’s adoption authorities. The rest of the process will be carried out when you travel to meet your child.
Once he or she receives a visa, you will be officially cleared to take him or her back to the United States.

Travel and Adopt

When you travel to meet your child, you can expect your stay to last anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks. During this time, you will get to know the child, begin the legal work of the international adoption process, and complete your visa application. The last step of the application is an interview with the country’s adoption authorities, who will ensure that you have met their standards for adoption.
After the visa interview, your child will receive one of the following immigrant visas:

IH-3 or IR-3 visa – An IH-3 (Hague) or IR-3 (non-Hague) visa signifies that both adoptive parents (if applicable) were present to see the child and that the adoption was completed in the foreign country.

IH-4 or IR-4 visa – Your child will receive an IH-4 or IR-4 visa if the adoption was not completed in the country, or if only one of two parents met the child. This means that you have legal custody of the child, but you need to finalize the adoption in the United States.

Before you return home, you will need to make sure you have certain documents for your child:

Visa
Passport
Birth certificate
Social Security card
Additional documentation required by the foreign country

Once you have adopted or gained custody of your child, you will be able to return home. However, the international adoption process has one more important step that often goes overlooked.

Re-Adoption

After you bring your child home, you will either need to finalize the adoption or complete a recommended re-adoption. If your child received an IH-4 or IR-4 visa, this means that the adoption process was not fully completed and finalization is still required. If your child received an IH-3 or IR-3 visa, then the adoption was completed, but a re-adoption is still highly encouraged.
By taking this final step, you can be sure that your adoption is legally recognized and that your child will have all the rights of a United States citizen. Neglecting to finalize or re-adopt can lead to legal difficulties in the future, so it is recommended that you do this as soon as possible upon arriving home.
After you have returned home and completed the legal procedures, your international adoption process will be complete.

what is the difficulty of their adoption?

“Don't be afraid of being different,” says Alexandra Yagodkina from Magnitogorsk, Misha's adoptive mother.

- A child who looks like you, he still does not look like anyone else. This is personality." Photo - from the Yagodkin family archive.

The database of orphans contains profiles of hundreds of children whose biological parents are citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics. Many Russian adoptive parents would gladly accept such babies into their families, but they are afraid of difficulties with paperwork and potential cancellation of the adoption. Yes, and guardianship officials in informal conversations often advise “not to mess” with “national” children.

Meanwhile, the problem is not banal everyday racism. There is a known case with the cancellation of the adoption of a Tajik baby - a child who lived in a prosperous Russian family for six months was sent to a Tajik shelter, the adoption was canceled. How to avoid such a dramatic scenario? The correspondent of the Change One Life Foundation spoke with experts and found out what guardians and adoptive parents should be prepared for when they decide to take children without Russian citizenship.

“Caregivers face the shocking callousness of those who make decisions about children”

Natalia Karagodina, lawyer, specialist in family law:

“This topic is extremely painful for many adoptive parents and for me personally. Officials and experts in the field of international law do not seem to understand that the fate of children is behind the documents.

Alas, in addition to the cancellation of the adoption of a boy from Tajikistan, there are other similar cases when the solution to the issue of the fate of the child is approached purely formally and, even worse, protecting, first of all, their own interests.

Court hearings on adoption or cancellation of adoption are held behind closed doors, and we do not always know about them.

In 1993, the countries - the former republics of the USSR - signed in Minsk the "Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters". However, in reality, it turns out that although the Minsk Convention was signed and ratified, including in the interests of placing orphans, in fact, its application sometimes leads to the opposite.

Moreover, the Minsk Convention is often applied and interpreted incorrectly. Thus, the Minsk Convention requires that children - citizens of the countries participating in the convention - be transferred to a family only with the consent of the competent authorities of the state of the child's citizenship. At the same time, the Minsk Convention does not regulate the question of what to do if no response is received, and what to do if the child has dual citizenship.

Russia ratified the 1996 Hague Convention, according to which it is possible to establish guardianship in some cases in relation to foreign citizens without seeking the consent of the competent authorities of the state of the child's citizenship.

Adopted children become citizens of the Russian Federation by virtue of adoption, wards have the right to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified manner. Foster parents make Russian citizenship for children quite easy.

The administration of children's institutions also issues Russian citizenship to children. It turns out that such children also have Russian citizenship - that is, at least double. This means that they need to be protected as Russian citizens too.

In my opinion, there are three aspects to this problem.

1. P procedure for the actions of guardianship authorities in case of interest of Russian adoptive parents in a child without Russian citizenship.

In order to adopt a child who is a citizen of a foreign state, you must first obtain the consent of this country. Guardianship authorities must write a corresponding request to the competent authorities, negotiate, wait for a response. Adoption or placement under guardianship is possible if the answer is positive.

At the same time, a child - a foreign citizen, in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, has the same rights as citizens of Russia, including, according to Articles 121-123 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, can be transferred to a family for upbringing.

How does it happen with us? Foster parents receive a conclusion on the possibility of being a guardian or adoptive parent, then they look for a child, visit him in a children's institution, establish contact with him and sign an agreement.

And only later, when the contact has already been established, when the child and parents develop attachment, and the child is often already under guardianship, officials begin to make appropriate requests to the embassies. As a result, drama happens.

Therefore, in order not to violate the right of each child to a family arrangement, guardianship authorities should at least find out in advance from a particular state its position regarding a particular child. Of course, this is a time-consuming process, but this is the only way we can avoid situations like the one that happened with a Moscow family that adopted a Tajik baby and lost him six months later by a court decision.

2. If the child is automatically considered a citizen of the country of which his parents are a citizen (one of them ).

It often happens that a biological mother ends up in a maternity hospital without documents: there is no passport, the residence permit has expired. She gives birth with some kind of "filkin's letter" - for example, with a photocopy of a residence permit that has expired. As a result, in the birth certificate of the child in the column "citizenship of the mother (father)" there is a dash. But the guardianship authorities consider this unimportant and believe that the child is still a citizen of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and so on.

On what basis? Why is my mother a citizen of Uzbekistan if she has not confirmed this with any document? Thus, although the Minsk Convention clearly refers to children who are citizens of a state party to the Minsk Convention, the guardianship authorities include in them all those who had the misfortune to be born from a foreign citizen or stateless person. The citizenship of the child is determined "by eye".

As a result of such actions of the guardianship authorities, the adoptive parents of the baby have a lot of problems that could have been avoided. I am aware of such situations in the Sverdlovsk Region, in the city of Vidnoye, Moscow Region.

Another example: a few years ago a child was seized from a group of drunken men. It turned out that his mother was born during the Soviet era in some Ukrainian city, and her citizenship was not indicated in the birth certificate of the child.

The child was adopted by foreign citizens, it was necessary to issue him a passport. The local FMS refused, citing the fact that the citizenship of the blood mother is unknown. The result of the campaign for a passport was the abolition of adoption as illegal!

We appealed this court decision, and, thank God, it was canceled, the child remained in the family. Issued and ill-fated passport. True, they managed to do this only after a complaint to the leadership of the Russian migration service. The saddest thing is that the Federal Migration Service recognized the child as a citizen of the Russian Federation, and the guardianship and guardianship authorities played a very unseemly role in this matter!

3. Attitude towards guardianship as a temporary way of placing a child in a family.

On the one hand, adoption is a priority form of family placement, on the other hand, guardianship is assigned in most cases of transferring a child to family upbringing, and on the third hand, not all children can or want to be adopted. Transferring a child out of custody to the authorities of a neighboring state seems normal.

Yes, formally guardianship is indeed a temporary measure, but in reality guardians in the overwhelming majority of cases raise adopted children as their own, without making any distinctions.

Why, then, is it possible to separate the guardian and the ward child? After all, there is already affection between them, they love each other, and this is the most important thing.

LET ORPHANS HAVE PARENTS

I know the situation: the guardians of a baby from Uzbekistan have been waiting for a response from the consulate for many months in order to be able to adopt him. The child lives in the family for more than two years, but there is no answer - neither positive nor negative. The guardian spoke with the consular officer, but the conversation cannot be sewn to the point, and the fate of the child remains uncertain. But he is used to his parents, he calls them mom and dad.

Alas, sometimes guardians are confronted with simply amazing heartlessness of people who make decisions regarding orphans.

There is a known case when the department of guardianship refused to make a request to the Ukrainian embassy about the possibility of adopting a 4-year-old boy: they say, they will still refuse ... A fresh example: a boy, a citizen of Ukraine, was brought to Russia in a terrible state, weakened and exhausted. The father is in a prison in Donetsk, nothing is known about the mother.

According to the Hague Convention 1996 years old, it is possible to establish custody of a child without the consent of the embassy, but for some reason the potential guardian was denied this. The boy got into the family only after the guardian filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office, the President. Why should guardians take some non-trivial actions (write complaints, consult with lawyers, negotiate with embassies) to help the child? After all, the interests of the child should be protected by guardianship authorities.

Finally, as a lawyer, I cannot fail to note: in addition to all the enumerated normative acts, in 1989, the USSR ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 3 of which states that in all actions, no matter who takes them, it is necessary to proceed from the best interests of the child. And the most important thing for him, of course, is the right to live and be brought up in a family.”

“We need a legally competent mechanism for the actions of guardianship authorities and foster parents”

Natalya Gorodiskaya, foster mother of many children, chairman of the Council of Foster Families Associations under the Ministry of Education of Russia, president of the Union of Foster Families:

“Due to circumstances, there are many children left by foreign citizens in Russian institutions for orphans. Most often these are babies born by migrant workers from the CIS countries. There are also children from other countries bordering Russia - for example, in Khabarovsk.

At the same time, many Russian adoptive parents, as far as I know, are ready to accept "national" children into the family, some even specifically select a child of non-Slavic appearance.

However, in order to avoid situations like the one that happened with a baby from Tajikistan, a legally competent mechanism for the actions of guardianship authorities and foster parents should be developed.

Obviously, in the case of the cancellation of the adoption of a Tajik boy, the guardianship authorities did not finalize, and the parents and the child were hostages of the situation. Employees of the guardianship authorities must understand the full responsibility for their actions (as well as for inaction). After all, no matter how pathetic it may sound, we are talking about human destiny.

There are no "national" children in my family, but I know many foster parents who have adopted such a child. Surrounding people usually react quite normally to a “different” family member. I think that in our society, manifestations of everyday racism are rather rare: we come from the USSR, where the idea of friendship between peoples was instilled in kindergarten.”

"We know stories of foreign adoptions with happy endings"

Yana Leonova, Director of the Change One Life Foundation:

“In order to formalize the adoption of a child whose parents are citizens of one of the CIS countries, the guardianship authorities must request the consent of the respective country. From practice it is obvious that, for example, Tajikistan usually refuses and does not give its citizens for foreign adoption. Embassies of other CIS countries respond differently in different circumstances.

In general, if the guardianship and guardianship authorities have taken all the necessary actions and followed all the procedures when registering a child, the adoptive parents should not have problems.

Absolutely strange, of course, are individual stories when a child is “pulled out” already from the family and sent not to the family, but again to an orphanage, but already at home. To prevent this from happening again, it is important to strictly follow the letter of the law in this matter. Expectant parents need to be aware of the procedures in order to be able to make sure they are being followed. We know stories of foreign adoptions with happy endings."

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Citizens of unfriendly countries want to be banned from adopting children from Russia

State Duma deputies believe that children are supervised in Russia orphans from Russia to citizens of unfriendly countries. Its authors were deputies from all parties except United Russia. In the explanatory note, the authors say that in 2021 foreign adoptive parents had 17,498, and the Russians have 455,866 orphans.

According to the co-author of the bill, Yana Lantratova (“Fair Russia”), children should be given away only if it is possible to trace their fate: “When crossing the border, the child leaves the field of our jurisdiction, and we will no longer be able to help him , to protect, if such assistance is required. Especially when it comes to unfriendly countries. ” The government approved the list of foreign states “committing unfriendly acts” against the Russian Federation, its citizens or legal entities in May 2021. The list includes only the United States and the Czech Republic. In March 2022, against the backdrop of hostilities in Ukraine, the list was expanded for the first time, now it contains 49states.

Deputies believe that the experience of the adoption in 2012 of the Russian response to the "Magnitsky act", which prohibited the adoption of Russians by Americans (the so-called "Dima Yakovlev law"), was "the right decision." But the deputies did not propose to correct the law “On measures of influence on unfriendly actions of the United States and other foreign states”. They decided to amend only Art. 127 and 146 of the Family Code (SC). In Art. 127 lists persons who cannot act as adoptive parents. Now these are persons deprived of parental rights, persons who had a criminal record, incapacitated, etc. In Art. 146 contains a similar list of prohibitions relating to guardianship. It is in these norms of the UK that it is proposed to prescribe that citizens of unfriendly states cannot adopt or take custody of children.

BGP Litigation lawyer Gayane Shtoyan, who deals with transnational children's disputes, notes that the ban on the adoption of children by foreigners proposed in the draft law is not absolute: “The ban is partial – we are talking about citizens only of those countries that were previously included in the list of so-called unfriendly” . She adds that the measure is positioned as temporary: the authorities leave the potential opportunity to re-allow adoption in the future if the country is excluded from the list of unfriendly states by the White House. Kirill Reznik, lawyer of the Unified Protection Center, says that, according to the ratified in 1990 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, foreign citizens in Russia have the right to adopt children, but the Russian Federation is not obliged in 100% of cases to provide them with the opportunity to use this right: “The Convention establishes only the fundamental possibility of international adoption, but the list of countries that may be involved in this procedure is not specified.