May 17, 2012. State Department Notice on Guatemala Illuminates Crucial Mission of Senator Landrieu. The Department of State's latest Guatemala update highlights the vital work accomplished by Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Senator Landrieu has long served as Congress's dedicated champion of adopted and fostered children. From April 10-14, 2012, Senator Landrieu, together with Representative Karen Bass and USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas, traveled to Guatemala (not for the first time) to advocate on behalf of children who are languishing in foster homes or orphanages in Guatemala, unable to join potential adoptive parents, as a result of the closure of Guatemala to international adoption on December 21, 2007. The delegation met with President Otto Perez Molina, Vice President Roxana Baldetti, Foreign Minister Harold Caballeros, the Attorney General, the Ministerio Publico (MP), the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), the Procuradur’a General de la Nación (PGN), the National Adoption Council (CNA), UNICEF, and Ministry of Social Development. If these cases find resolution soon, we know Senator Landrieu is one of the people who deserves the most credit. More Information.

May 16, 2012. NPR's Show on Ethiopian Adoption Shouldn't be Missed. NPR's Tell It More broadcast an excellent show on adoption from Ethiopia yesterday. Dr. Jane Aronson's comments about older children adoption should resonate with adoptive parents, wherever their children are from: "I felt very strongly about the fact that older children rarely get an opportunity to have permanency out of a situation like that. And yet, I would say that when a child first comes home there are a lot of challenges. A child has to learn English and has to learn what it's like to live in a permanent family and has to trust, and it takes a long time... So as a parent you need not to be judgmental. You have to have an open heart. But at the same time you have to really be prepared for the kinds of things that you are not thinking about... I think that those things, and I know in all my 25 years of doing this, this is not just about Ethiopia. It's about that world. It's a complicated world and there are lots of things that you may not know that you may find out later in life. And so I try to tell people don't be so definitive." More Information.

May 15, 2012. British Pedophile Abuse Scandal Highlights Dangers of Group Homes. The recent conviction of nine men in the northern British city of Rochdale highlights the ghastly nightmare of children put into group homes. Teenage girls, some as young as thirteen, were lured into sex-trafficking by organized gangs while the people who were in charge of their care did nothing, never even letting police know that the girls were missing. The gang's named ringleaders, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rauf, 43, both married men with families were jailed for conspiracy and sex-trafficking. But what will happen to the public and private employees who were supposed to be watching out for these children? A permanent, loving family is always a better answer than a group home. More Information.

May 14, 2012. Haiti's Cholera Crisis Deepens. As a straight-forward New York Times editorial makes clear, "The cholera epidemic in Haiti, which began in late 2010, is bad and getting worse, for reasons that are well understood and that the aid community has done far too little to resolve." The respected organization Doctors Without Borders has warned that Haiti is not equipted to cope with this spring's predicted resurgence of the epidemic. While the crisis was cearly caused by the United Nations, Unicef and its sister organizations have done too little, too late to halt the spread of this dreadful disease which is estimate could infect 200,000 to 250,000 Haitians this year. United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Haiti, Nigel Fisher, has conceded that "what we are doing is sort of patchwork, Band-Aid work on a fundamental problem." We know 1,200 children who are safe from cholera. They are the children who came to the United States though the humanitarian parole program. More Information.

May 10, 2012. Nonsense. The Department of State's disinformation campaign against international adoption continues. The Associated Press today quotes Alison Dilworth, adoptions division chief at the U.S. Office of Children's Issues, as denigrating all Guatemalan adoptions because, "They have incredible problems with fraud." However, our recent review of a massive collection of internal U.S. government documents on Guatemala written between 1987 and 2008 demonstrates that U.S. officials contemporaneously believed that problems in the Guatemalan adoption program were limited to begin with and, because of U.S. policy changes, were becoming fewer as time continued. DOS continues to be a stalwart supporter, says Dilworth, of Hague Convention international adoptions. But why, we ask, did DOS not support the Guatemalan pilot program or Vietnam's Hague accession in a timely manner which would have permitted both these countries to remain open to international adoption as a method of finding permanent homes for unparented children? More Information.

May 8, 2012. Haiti Announces Temporary Suspension of Processing of New Adoption Cases. L'Institut du Bien ætre Social et de Recherches (IBESR), the Haitian adoption authority, has announced that it is temporarily suspending the processing of new international adoption cases. This moratorium went into effect yesterday. According to the Department of State, IBESR has taken this step in order to deal with its backlog of cases. We are puzzled because the Haitian earthquake and the resulting Humanitarian Parole program for U.S. in process adoptions as well as similar programs for other countries ended long term backlog issues. More Information.

May 7, 2012. U.S. Government Lowers Adoption Fees. The Department of State has announced that effective April 13, 2012, the fee for immediate relative applications, which are process because of an I-130, I-600 or I-800 application have been reduced from $404 to $230. However, as these fees are charged on the day of payment, not the day of interview or the day the visa is received, applicants will not receive refunds of previously made payments. More Information.

May 1, 2012. Why Not Prevent the Atrocity of Being Without a Permanent, Loving Family? The White House has announced the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board. Consisting of representations of State, Defense, Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, USAID, the Joint Staff, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the Office of the Vice President under the direction of National Security Advisor Samantha Power, these high level delegates will do what? As James Gibney points out, while it is clear what the definition is of genocides is, "atrocity" is a much more amorphous concept. So we have a suggestion: why doesn't this new group consider the importance of family in the life of children everywhere and the devastating impact of institutional care and focus U.S. government attention on the importance of keeping each method of family creation, including international adoption, as a viable option for unparented children? More Information.

April 30, 2012. Stating the Facts About Ethiopian Adoption. Ethiopian international adoption to the United States has undergone rigorous scrutiny. As a presentation following the joint Department of State/USCIS taskforce convened in January 2011, concluded: Ethiopian adoptions is shown "to meet the standards required by U.S. law, specifically: 'children being adopted from Ethiopia by U.S. parents meet the definition of orphan under U.S. law and the cases are approved.'" We only wish we could receive a copy of the actual report on Ethiopian adoptions but for the last year the Department of State has refused to make this report public or even provide a copy to Members of Congress. A USCIS representative responded to our questions by stating: "Ethiopian adoption is not broken." Children have a right to a permanent loving family wherever that family may be found.

April 25, 2012. Intended Parents Duped by Fertility Doctor May Get to Adopt "Their" Child. A woman who was tricked into believing she had given birth to a daughter in Nigeria may be permitted by British courts to retain custody of the child and indeed adopt her. This remarkable story began in Nigeria where the intended parents had gone for fertility treatments. The potential mother claims she was convinced that she was pregnant, drugged, and then told she had given birth to the baby she was then handed. Her story has been accepted as true by a British court. When the intended parents returned to Britain their local doctor did not believe that the woman was the child's biological parent. After DNA testing confirmed his suspicion, the child was placed in foster care. The trial court ruled for the intended parents but the local council appealed the verdict. Now that the appeal has been denied, the intended parents can go to family court and request custody as well as the right to adopt their child. More Information.

April 24, 2012. Referrals Come in Now-Very Small China Non-Special Needs Adoption Program. The CCCWA, which administers international adoption issues for the Chinese government, has sent out referrals for prospective adoptive parents whose dossiers were logged in with CCCWA between September 1 and September 4, 2006. The enormous wait time for a non-special needs child (in excess of six years from start to finish) from China has resulted in the virtual end of new applicants for this program and the conversion of the Chinese adoption program to over three-quarters waiting children.

April 23, 2012. The Globalization of Child Welfare Issues. A recent case in Norway caught our attention as it illustrates again how the globalization of employment and trade affects child welfare. The district court in Stavanger, Norway agreed that Abhigyan (3) and Aishwarya (1), who had been removed from the custody of their birth parents, would be placed in the custody of their uncle, who lives in India rather than placed in Norwegian foster care. The children, as well as their birth parents, have the status of NRI-Indians resident abroad. The Indian government had made the question of the children's custody a major diplomatic issue, even raising it during the Nuclear Security Summit when was held in Seoul, South Korea last month. The birth parents supported the uncle's application for custody. More Information.

April 19, 2012. A Note of Appreciation for USCIS. We want to commend USCIS for their outreach and caring approach to the adoption community. Over the last two years we have seen great support and interest from USCIS regarding all issues pertaining to international adoption. The National Benefits Center has been a real boon to prospective adoptive parents as has the helpful attitude taken by USCIS staff. Not the least of USCIS's great strides is the communication with PAPs. The fact that PAPs with questions can reach their officers quickly and that telephone calls and emails are quickly returned makes a great deal of difference to children and their families. The feedback we have received from adoptive families is overwhelmingly positive and we are all very grateful.

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