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Hello, I am a U.S. citizen living in California, and a Texas resident. I am active duty military married to a Philippino national. We are looking at adopting her brother's son (our nephew). He is only one month old at present. We are curious if we would be allowed to adopt him at this age, and how long would it be before we could bring the baby home to the states. Any help with figuring out what to do, and any help as to where to start paperwork wise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, Chris and Nitz
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Hi, and welcome to the boards! First, the good news. The age limits for adoption from an international country to the USA are birth to age 16. (There are a few exceptions that include older kids with adopted blood siblings, and a few exceptions for countries that only permit their kids to be adopted until age 15, but your nephew is well within that range and his age wouldn't prevent an adoption.) Now, the bad news. In order for you to be able to bring the child to the USA with an adoption visa (and there is NO other visa you could bring him in on, so an adoption visa is your only bet) he MUST qualify under the USCIS's definition of "orphan". That definition acknowledes that all children have two parents, and says that at least one of those parents has to be unknown, dead, or have abandoned the family completely. And that the remaining parent (if there is one) is unable to support the child in the manner the child's country considers normal. If the child has been abandoned to an orphanage, there are rules about how long the parents have to have been uninvolved in his life. It isn't enough that life in the USA would be "better", nor is it enough that the child's parents want to have him adopted. One parent (or both) has to be completely out of the picture, and the other must be unable to support the child in the manner the country considers normal. So, since you said this is yoru wife's brother's child, the "unknown parent" part doesn't apply - the mother can't exactly be unknown! And since you didn't mention that your wife's brother is dead or abandoned his family, then the mother would have to either be dead or have abandoned the family. If that's true, then what you hope to do ought to be able to be accomplished relatively easily. Any experienced adoption agency that handles Philippine adoptions would be able to help you. There are, of course, lots of details that I don't know. But I wanted to give you a quick answer to your question that outlines the biggest obstacle - that "orphan" definition. It cannot be gotten around,and so it is the first thing to consider when considering international adoption of a child you already know about. If he qualifies as an "orphan" by that definition, I hope others will chime in about any other requirements you'd have to meet (like homestudy requirements) and the associated fees, and the timeline you asked about. Good luck to you!
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