In the U.S., we recognize that we have more opportunities and we pride ourselves on sharing those opportunities with those who are less fortunate. In many instances, families seeking to adopt a child will look for that child in a foreign country. Our foster system has many children who are available, but for some families, the option to foster a child with the hope of eventually adopting, is not their first choice.
A few warnings to those who seek to adopt through a foreign source. First, the Hague Convention covers the adoption of some foreign children. It does not cover the adoption of ALL foreign children. The Convention is a treaty signed by many countries, where part of the convention addresses inter-country adoption of orphans. In other words, if a person in China wants to adopt an orphan from England, they can expect that the procedures found in the Hague Convention will be followed. Not all countries signed onto the convention, but most have. You will want to double-check to make sure the country you seek to adopt from has signed this convention, because if it is not, you may find yourself facing rules that are not as easy to identify.
The Hague convention only covers adoptions of orphans. Each country who has signed the convention has slightly different procedures, but the biggest advantage of this convention is that, for U.S. citizens, once you have properly accomplished your adoption process through the Hague Convention, the U.S. state department will honor the adoption and issue a passport, allowing the child to attain citizenship through this means.
In a non-Hague adoption (for example, an inter-family adoption or the adoption of a person who is not identified as an orphan), our government does not recognize the adoption as qualifying the child for citizenship. In other words, we are not allowing the Hague Convention to let us circumvent our immigration rules, to bring people into our country and give them citizenship, just by adopting them, if they are not orphans. When someone very close to me decided to adopt her niece, for example, and bring her to the U.S. for her schooling, the U.S. government required this friend of mine to spend 3 years in the niece's home country, acting as her adoptive parent IN THAT COUNTRY, before they allowed her to bring the child here.
In another instance, I had a potential client consult me about a non-Hague adoption. She and her husband were living in an asian country as missionarys for a few years with their church. They had met a teen from Nigeria. His parents had been caught in a scam so he was now stuck. The scammer had promised to get the teen enrolled in a soccer team where he would be making a significant amount of money, if they could scratch up enough money to pay the scammer. The scammer had arranged a flight, and the families who succombed to the scam, brought their teens to the airport and gave them a great send-off, with the scammer taking the kids and their money. The scammer left the kids in this Asian country and flew away, never to be heard of again. The kids were left in an airport with no further instructions. The mission helped them get through customs and found out about the scam. Several of the kids' parents welcomed them home, but this one older teen, his parents did not want him back. They could not afford him. They could not afford tickets for his trip home. The kid was stuck. So my potential client felt they had a solution... adopt him and bring him home with them when they returned in another month. They had consulted with their embassy, but were rebuffed, so they reached out to me, a lawyer from their home state.
I felt bad about it, but I had to explain about the Hague Convention situation that this does not apply to children whose parents are still alive. All their good intentions had nothing to do with being this young man's parents, they were simply trying to solve an immigration issue. And that is not what adoption is about. It is no there to solve immigration issues.
In the process of our conversation, this couple brought up to me the situation of some famous people who have adopted children from other countries who were not necessarily orphans. Was this about giving kids to people who were rich or famous, and keeping kids away from the poor (but possibly more deserving) missionaries? No... I had to point out, those famous adoptive parents were living in other countries at the time of their famous adoptions. Our own government is very sensitive to the potential accusation that we are coming to their countries and BUYING children from their parents, who are very much alive. We do not believe in doing this thing. If you are not familiar with similar situations in other countries, such as what happened with this young Nigerian man, you might not be aware that this does happen. Parents effectively sell their children. In the most notorious of instances, they are selling the kids into slavery or indentured servitude, to work in a factory or worse. Our country does not want any part of that. We often help the victims of human trafficking incidents, but we don't want to encourage such trafficking. So, where the child's birth parents are still alive and capable of parenting, we require the potential adoptive parent to prove their intention to parent. Go there, and be the kid's parent, if this kid is that important to you!
It sounds difficult, but think of it in two ways. First, as I already mentioned, our government does not want to turn adoption into a loophole for immigration, allowing people to adopt each other, willy-nilly, just to get a passport. Second, We do not want to be the subject of a news expose where some poor mother from another country gets on camera and points fingers at us for being so arrogant that one of our citizens convinced her to sell her beloved children to them, and now she regrets it.
If you're seeking adoption from a foreign country, recognize that you will be required to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. If you are working with an adoption agency who has a good lawyer, who has had success in making adoptions from this particular country you're working with, then great. HOWEVER, if you are seeking to adopt your own relative, or a child you have found through a source other than an experienced adoption agency, you will want to be sure to hire an immigration attorney with experience in foreign adoptions. If you are adoption in a non-Hague fashion, be sure your lawer is familiar with the rules for non-Hague adoptions and has had success with making such adoptions happen. Finally, no matter which version of foreign adoption you are seeking, recognize that you may find the requirements to be difficult to fulfill. If the requirements feel impossible, there may be a reason. It's quite possible that our government has decided to impose extreme requirements on your particular situation because they do not approve of people seeking to adopt for your particular reasons. I have advised people seeking to adopt their adult landscaper to help him get citizenship, or seeking to adopt their spouses because the circumstances of their marriage had caused the Immigration authorities to deny citizenship under that route. In each of these situations, the difficult requirements for non-orphan adoption felt bad. These people honestly just wanted to help someone immigrate, and they were sure they had found a loophole under the adoption opportunity. Unfortunately, the "loophole" is not as open as some people would hope. Thank goodness those people consulted me before they proceeded very far with the adoption process, because the expense of following through with the adoption would not have been worth it for the results they sought.
Before you start this adventure, please, consult a lawyer. And good luck. Creating a family for a person who has none can save lives, and futures.
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