How to adapt foreign niece and nephew?

1. You must have a locally done homestudy, which satisfies the requirements of your state. 2. You must be approved as a potential parent by the USCIS, which will need an I-600A or I-600 form, your homestudy report, and some documents such as birth and marriage certificates. 3. Either you or your spouse or both must be U.S. citizens. 4. The child you hope to adopt must be under age 16; the "orphan petition" (I-600, the companion document to the I-600A) must be filed with the USCIS before his/her 16th birthday. The only exception is that the child can be adopted up to his 18th birthday if you already have adopted one of his/her birth siblings, who is living in your home. 5. The child you hope to adopt must be an "eligible orphan" under the terms of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. You can read the relevant part on the website of the USCIS. Basically, a child living with married parents or, depending on the foreign country's laws, with two people living in a common-law marriage, won't qualify. A single parent may qualify if he/she is not able to provide care for the child at a level consistent with the basic standard of living in the foreign country. The child must be either abandoned or irrevocably relinquished. 6. The child must be adopted pursuant to the laws of the foreign country. Depending on the laws of the foreign country, the child may have to go through adoption there or may be brought to the U.S. under a decree of guardianship for adoption here. Consult a reputable immigration or adoption attorney in your state. If you mention your state here, someone may be able to send you a private message with information on an immigration or adoption attorney. Sharon

Thank you so much. I am a US citizen, and I live in Illinois. If you know of any lawyer in Illinois who deal with this matter, please let me know. What is homestudy? Do the children need to live with me for 2 years before I can adopt them? Thanks a lot.

The homestudy is a process -- required in every state, as well as for the USCIS and the foreign country -- that both evaluates your fitness to adopt and prepares you for the challenges of adoptive parenthood. While each state's laws differ in terms of what the homestudy entails, and while each country may want to see different things included in the homestudy report, here is a general idea of the process. 1. Intake. When you go to sign up with a homestudy agency, you will be asked a number of questions about your employment, your marital status, your health, and so on. The reason is that a homestudy agency does not want to waste its time or your money by starting a homestudy if you cannot possibly be approved to adopt. One question that you are likely to face is whether you have determined that the foreign country will let you adopt the children and that the USCIS WILL allow the immigration of the children. There is no point in starting a homestudy if you will not be able to adopt or immigrate the kids. And this is why you really need to be working with a competent attorney. 2. Document review. A social worker will collect from you various documents that prove some of the statements you made on intake. As an example, you will need to provide copies of your birth certificate, marriage certificate (if married), previous divorce decrees (if any), copy of a mortgage or rent check to show that you have a home, bank statements verifying assets, letter from your employer verifying employment and salary, proof of good health issued by your physician, proof of citizenship if foreign born, and criminal record clearance from the local police. You will also need to sign a release allowing the social worker to obtain a child abuse clearance from your jurisdiction. If you have sought any mental health counseling, you may be required to provide a letter from the therapist, detailing your diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. 3. Letters of reference. Most states and agencies require you to provide approximately three letters of reference from non-relatives, attesting to your good character and fitness to parent. Some agencies also require that you have another non-relative do a face-to-face interview with the social worker, for the same purpose. 4. Classes. Some, but not all, states and agencies require that you take a preadoption course that covers various issues concerning the adopting process and parenting an adopted child. 5. Autobiography. Many agencies require that you (and your spouse, if married) write an autobiography, following an outline that is provided, to guide subsequent counseling sessions. You will usually be asked questions concerning how you were educated, how you were disciplined, what your parents' marriage was like, how your parents dealt with their own disagreements, how you met your spouse (if married), and so on. 6. Counseling sessions. You will meet approximately three times with a social worker in his/her office. A common pattern for married couples is that the social worker meets once with the wife, once with the husband, and once with both spouses together. You will discuss a variety of adoption related issues, such as dealing with the grief the children may have at losing their biological parents, dealing with adjustment of older children in a new country, and so on. 7. Home visit. The homestudy worker will visit your home, usually only once, to assess whether it is safe and welcoming. Please note that your home does not have to be large or fancy; a rental apartment can be just fine. The state may mandate that some specific safety issues be addressed -- for example, whether you have smoke detectors as required by law and a fire extinguisher in your kitchen -- and may have some rules concerning the sleeping quarters for the children. In general, you will not have to have the children's rooms set up and decorated, but you will need to be able to show where the children will sleep. Most prospective parents are terrified of the home visit, cleaning like madmen and even doing some redecorating, but it is actually one of the easiest parts of the homestudy. If you would feel comfortable having your employer or your inlaws come for dinner, you will probably do just fine. 8. Final report. Once the homestudy is complete, the social worker will write a report in a format that it is acceptable to the state, the USCIS, and the foreign country. The report will be used as part of your I-600A/I-600 submission to the USCIS and in your dossier of documents for the foreign adoption authorities. As to your other question, here is my understanding of the USCIS rules. Check the USCIS website or contact a reputable immigration attorney to ensure that you have the most accurate and up to date information: 1. If the children meet the test of being eligible orphans, and if you have USCIS and foreign country approval, you can immediately obtain adoption visas (IR-3 or IR-4) for them, whether the foreign country grants you a final decree of adoption or gives you a decree of guardianship that will allow you to finalize the adoption in the U.S. If you and your spouse, assuming you are married, BOTH travel overseas and see the children before a final decree of adoption is issued by the foreign country, they will come home on IR-3 visas. If a final decree is issued before both parents (in a married couple) have seen the children, or if they are to be brought to the U.S. under a decree of guardianship for adoption here, they will come home on IR-4 visas. If a child is given an IR-3 visa, he/she becomes an automatic citizen as soon as he/she enters the U.S., and readoption in your state is optional. Many people do feel that readoption, though optional, is desirable, since it can be used to do a legal change of name, provide a state birth certificate, provide documents recognizable by schools and other institutions, etc. If a child is given an IR-4 visa, adoption or readoption is mandatory (except in cases where a state will indicate "recognition" of a foreign adoption), and automatic citizenship does not take effect until readoption (recognition) is complete. If you must readopt or choose to readopt in the U.S., you may need to satisfy post-placement requirements and other state requirements. In general, however, you can usually complete readoption in a year or less, depending on your state's laws As you can see, there is no two year rule if the children qualify for adoption visas. If, however, they do not, you would have to live overseas with them for two years and then apply for a regular visa for them. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of. All in all, I think that your first job is to ensure that: a) you can adopt the children under the foreign country's laws and remove them from the country, and b) you can lawfully bring the children to the U.S. on adoption visas. While you can possibly research these matters on your own, you would probably benefit from working with an immigration attorney. Sharon

Thanks so much for your advice. Will the immigration/adoption lawyer in the US be able to tell me if I can adopt the children under the foreign country's laws and remove them from the country ? How much does an adoption lawyer usually cost for a case like this? Please let me know if any of you know of a lawyer who deals with this matter. Thanks a lot.

... will first be able to tell you whether the children are likely to qualify for adoption visas to enter the U.S. There is no point in even considering adopting them if you will not be able to bring them to the U.S. easily. He/she will also have good sources of information on the adoption processes in various countries. However, you can begin the research yourself. Start by going to the U.S. State Department website at [url]http://travel.state.gov/adopt,[/url] and scrolling down to find the name of your country. Click on it for general rules about adopting from that country. You can also go to the website of the country's Embassy in the U.S. and that of the U.S. Embassy in the children's country. If there is no adoption information on those sites, use the e-mail addresses given to forward questions. Your adult relatives in the country may be able to find out from government officials if intercountry adoption is allowed and what the process will be for relinquishing the two children and having you adopt them. I do not know how much the services of an immigration attorney will cost. And I do not know any such attorneys in your state. However, you might want to call Irene Steffas, a very well respected adoption/immigration lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, who may be able to refer you to someone in your area. You could also call Jody Marten, an attorney who used to work for the USCIS, and who practices in Washington, DC. She may also be able to refer you to someone in your state. You can get the phone numbers of these women from the website of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Sharon S

Thank you so much, Sharon. I went to [url]http://travel.state.gov/adopt,[/url] and scrolling down to find the name of your country (Indonesia), that brings me to the US embassy website in Indonesia, but it only has information on adopting from an orphanage. Thanks for your help.