IR4 Visas

You might want to cross post this on the China adoption forum and the General Adoptive Parent forum as they tend to get more traffic and are directed toward adoptive parents, while this forum is for adoptees. Good luck!

You do not need to go to China. Check to see whether your state offers "recognition" as an alternative to readoption. Official recognition of the foreign adoption by your state is usually much quicker and cheaper than readoption, and it satisfies the federal requirement for kids who came home on IR-4 visas. States vary in terms of whether they offer both readoption and recognition or only one option, and some states offer a hybrid that has some features of each. Readoption, in its purest form, is a judicial process that is similar in many ways to adoption. Depending on your state, you may need a homestudy update, post-placement reports, new police and child abuse clearances, and so on. Once you provide the documents, there is a court hearing and, if everything is in order, the judge issues a decree stating that you are now the legal parent of your child. If your child's American name was not on any of her Chinese paperwork and you did not do a legal name change by another mechanism available in your state, you can also have the judge add a sentence to the decree that officially gives her the right to use her American name on legal documents. In some states, the process is complicated enough that you will need an attorney, though in others, you may be able to do without one. The advantages of readoption are that it gives you a decree that is valid in all states, that is the only document you need in order to prove that you are your child's parent, that is easily recognized and understood, that is replaceable if lost or destroyed, and that can protect your child's inheritance rights in the event that your will is contested. In some states, you need a readoption decree in order to get a state certificate of foreign birth for your child. The drawbacks are that, in states with a lot of requirements, readoption can take quite a while and, especially if you use an attorney, it can be costly. In its purest form, recognition is an administrative process and not a judicial one. You go to a government office, fill out a form, and provide some supporting documents, most of which you already have -- you may or may not need a homestudy update. After everything is reviewed, you will receive a document indicating that the state recognizes your foreign adoption as valid. The advantages of recognition are speed, convenience, and cost. An attorney is almost never required. One drawback is that you don't actually receive an adoption decree; if you need to prove that you are your child's parent, you will need to provide your child's Chinese adoption decree, with translation, plus the recognition statement, and this may single your child out as "different" or cause many questions to be asked. Moreover, if you lose the Chinese paperwork, you can't replace it and the recognition statement can't really be used on its own. In some states, you cannot use a recognition document to get a certificate of foreign birth, and in many states, you cannot use the recognition process to do a legal name change; you would have to do it via a legal name change process available in your state court. Some people worry about whether recognition adequately protects inheritance rights, and there is some question as to whether a recognition done by one state will be valid in others. The good news is that there are some hybrid processes that combine many of the advantages of readoption and recognition, and that many states are simplifying their processes, given that the parents have jumped through so many hoops already. So do see what's available in your state; you may be able to complete the requirements quickly. Also, if there's no fairly quick process in your state, check on whether you can do readoption even after your child turns 18, in your state. Sharon