US citizen adopting though US agency while living in Australia?

lease remember that international adoption actually has two components -- adoption and immigration. While it is difficult for Americans living abroad to adopt an American child, some U.S. citizens living abroad adopt internationally, either from the country in which they are residing or from a third country. It's complicated, but doable, in some, but not all, cases. Since most U.S. birthmothers want some degree of ongoing contact with the children they relinquish, very few of them will agree to place their child with an American living overseas. And many foster care agencies won't place an American child with Americans living abroad, unless he/she is extremely hard to place within the U.S. because of age or disability. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to adopt an Australian child. Australia, like most countries in the English-speaking world, has very few children available for international adoption. The main reason is its prosperity. Few people need to relinquish children because of poverty, and there are usually relatives or community members who are well off enough to add another "mouth to feed" to their household, if someone does make an adoption plan. Australia also has a good "social safety net" for the poor, so that most women do not feel that they must relinquish a child, if times get tough. In addition, young people in Australia are generally well informed about sexuality and fertility control, compared to those in many of the countries from which Americans adopt. Contraceptives are readily available, and I suspect that abortion is legal and the choice of some Australian women, when they find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy. Since you are unlikely to be able to adopt from the U.S. or Australia, your best bet would be to adopt from a third country, which happens to be open to adoption at this time. Your first task, with regard to the actual adoption, would be to identify a country which is open to adoption and which has requirements you could meet, with regard to age, marital status, health status, and so on. Remember that any international adoption must be conducted according to the requirements of the CHILD's country of citizenship. Do be aware that a few countries, such as Kazakhstan, are not receptive to couples in which the two spouses do not have the same citizenship. They fear that, if the marriage ever goes sour, there could be all kinds of international legal issues involving child custody and child support. Luckily, most countries WILL accept families where the spouses are citizens of different countries. Since the U.S. has ratified the Hague Convention on international adoption, you would have to determine whether your country of choice has also ratified this treaty. If so, you would have to comply with Hague requirements, as well. These requirements would involve things like working only with a Hague-accredited American agency, completing a certain number of hours of parent preparation, and so on. Once you've identified a country for which you qualify and determined whether it is Hague or non-Hague, you would then proceed to have a homestudy by a provider permitted to conduct one. In many cases, Americans living abroad can contact the U.S. Embassy in the country where they are residing, to get a list of homestudy providers. Otherwise, the U.S. adoption agency you choose can often help you find one. You will also need to provide a variety of documents to satisfy the foreign country; these documents are usually called a "dossier". Getting all the documents for your U.S. citizen spouse can be complicated, when you live abroad, but it is doable. Just expect to have to spend some time and money on the process. As an example, you will need a recently issued version of your husband's U.S. birth certificate, and it will need to go through an authentication process that involves sending it to various places in the U.S. to get certain seals. Many dossiers require police clearances from every place you have lived, and those are usually a real "bear" to collect, if you have moved around a lot. Now, the real issue for you will relate to immigration, not adoption. The issue has two parts: 1. Satisfying Australian requirements. Most countries require people entering their borders, either as an immigrant or for a visit, to acquire a visa. I do not know Australian requirements, but I must tell you that some parents who complete an international adoption find out, way too late, that they cannot get a visa for the child to enter their country. They wind up with legal and moral responsibility for a child, whom they can't actually bring home. So before you even get started with a homestudy, make sure that you will be able to meet Australian requirements for bringing a child into the country. The Australian government may have rules regarding the countries from which you may adopt, the known medical conditions a child may have, the situation of the child's birthparents, your own financial and other capacities, and so on. 2. Satisfying American requirements. Do be aware that the U.S. has some fairly strict requirements with regard to both a parent's eligibility to bring a chiild into the U.S. and the eligibility of the child to be immigrated. As an example, the child must qualify as an eligible orphan -- that is, cannot have been living with two parents before the adoption. If you want to return to the U.S. with your child within the two years following adoption, you could find that there is a serious problem with getting a visa for him/her, unless your child meets the requirements for an adoption visa. Also, if you want your child to qualify for American citizenship without having to wait a long time, he/she will have to be adopted according to U.S. requirements, as well as according to Hague requirements. Under U.S. law, an internationally adopted child can qualify for an adoption visa, as long as at least one spouse is an American citizen, and as long as both the couple and the child meet other requirements of the USCIS. However, the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, which grants automatic citizenship to some internationally adopted children, does not cover children of expatriate Americans, unless those children actually enter the U.S. on an adoption visa. So some expats arrange to complete the USCIS requirements for immigrating a child, bring their children to the U.S. upon adoption, and stay long enough to meet various USCIS requirements. I would strongly advise you to discuss the citizenship requirements for children of expats with an experienced USCIS person in Australia, or with a good immigration lawyer in the U.S., if getting your child American citizenship is something that is important to you. All in all, it's not that easy for expatriate Americans to adopt internationally, but it IS sometimes doable. I wish you luck in your journey. Sharon

Thank you. It seems that is going to be a quite complicated situation to adopt through a US agency while living in Australia; so after making some phone calls :phone: we decided we will adopt though Australia... it will be much slower but it will save alot of troubles down the track! Thanks again for you advice :thankyou:

Hi,I know this is an old post but I came across it in as part of a google search and think there is some misinformation here that should be corrected in the event it misleads people. Specifically, this comment: "Since most U.S. birthmothers want some degree of ongoing contact with the children they relinquish, very few of them will agree to place their child with an American living overseas. And many foster care agencies won't place an American child with Americans living abroad, unless he/she is extremely hard to place within the U.S. because of age or disability."This has not been our experience. At all. We are a US / Australian married couple living in Asia and we recently adopted newborn twins from the US as a domestic adoption. Our experience was that our offshore status was a turn off for some birth mothers but a huge plus for others. We were chosen remarkably quickly and have since learned that some birthmothers like the idea of an expat / travelling lifestyle. Our consultant that does nothing but adoptions abroad said that it was about 50/50 in her 20 year experience. Our agency and home study consultants said much the same as they do a large volume of US domestic adoptions for US couples (or mixed couples) living offshore. Hardly a rarity. As for post adoption contact, just because you are living offshore, does not mean you vanish from the face of the earth! We have healthy lines of communication established and everyone is happy. Face to face visits are not possible but from what I understand, a large number of adoptions do not involve in person post adoption contact anyway. I would encourage any American ex-pats to look at the domestic option. Don't rule it out till you have looked at the options. We found it a relatively pain free process (no adoption is smooth sailing i guess) and there are a lot of people set up to assist with the circumstance that was described in the original post (I am not certain of the rules about naming agencies on here but they are not hard to find on google - try terms like adoptions abroad etc). Good luck.