Can my child be adopted from the UK to the USA?

You raise some good questions about how international adoption works.1. Ethical intercountry adoption recognizes that sovereign nations have the ability to enact laws to protect the most vulnerable of their citizens, including minor children. As a result, ethical intercountry adoption of a child requires adherence to the laws of the child's country of citizenship, with regard to whether he/she is adoptable and by whom. If your child is a UK citizen, then UK law will apply when determining who can adopt him/her and whether he/she can be placed internationally. 2. The Hague Convention on intercountry adoption, an international treaty ratified or acceded to by over 90 countries, codifies best practices in international adoption. It also makes it clear that the best interests of a child require the government of the child's country of citizenship to decide who may be adopted and by whom. Different countries will have different rules, but they should be based on the best interests of the child, as the government perceives them. As an example, while the U.S. and the U.K. permit single people to adopt, South Korea does not, because it believes that the best interests of a child are best protected if he/she has both a mother and a father who want to parent; as a result, whether I like it or not, I could not adopt from South Korea when I chose to adopt, because I am single. In any case, if you wish to place your baby for adoption, you will have to do so under U.K. rules, whether you like them or not.3. Ethical intercountry adoption also requires that the laws of the country of the prospective adoptive parents also be followed, with regard to what people are qualified to adopt, and what children are allowed to immigrate to the U.S. The U.S. will NOT allow the immigration of an adopted child if the adoption does not conform to the laws of the child's country of citizenship, or if the prospective adoptive parents do not have both a completed homestudy in their U.S. state of residence and agreement from the USCIS that they are qualified to adopt and are unlikely to abuse or neglect a child or to place him or her in the foster care system or on the welfare rolls. If you gave birth to your child in the U.K. and tried to place him/her with a U.S. family, the child would not be given a U.S. permanent resident visa in his/her U.K. passport if the U.S. felt that the adoption was not legal under U.K. laws, and if the prospective parents did not have USCIS approval to bring an adopted child into the U.S. Even if the American parents somehow managed to obtain an adoption decree from the U.K., allowing you to relinquish your child to them, the U.S. would not grant the visa, because it would know that the correct legal process was not followed. Likewise, even if you chose a couple to adopt your child, but they didn't have a homestudy in their home state and USCIS approval, a visa would not be granted.4. It is NOT legal, under U.S. law, for a woman to come to the U.S. to give birth and relinquish the child for adoption here. If the USCIS finds out that you are pregnant and thinking about adoption, it will not give you a visa. And if you lie to the USCIS in order to get a visa under these circumstances, you are committing a federal crime and can be prosecuted; at the very least, you and your child can be deported to the U.K. and not allowed to return. The USCIS is not being arbitrary in having these rules. The rules exist to prevent pregnant women from being exploited. In many countries, Americans have approached poor women who do not understand adoption and the finality of relinquishing a child, who may not even be literate in their own languages, and either given them money or lied to them, saying that they wanted to take their child to the U.S. for an education and that the child would return to them subsequently. They bring the women to the U.S., offer them trips to Disneyland, put them up in a hotel, give them three good meals a day, give them gifts, drive them around in a nice car, and so on. Then, when the babies are born, they insist that the women hand them over, even if the women have second thoughts after seeing their beautiful babies. This is totally unethical, in terms of good adoption practice. Any pregnant woman deserves a certain period of time after delivery to make a final decision on relinquishment of a child for adoption -- sometimes as much as 30 days, in certain states. But if a pregnant woman has been showered with gifts and trips and such, she may feel "obligated" to relinquish the child, even if she doesn't want to, and it will be hard for her to make a good decision. And the prospective adoptive parents and the facilitators who may have brought the woman to the U.S. may put pressure on the woman and even coerce her to relinquish. They may take the woman's passport, may not give her money, and may tell her that, if she doesn't give up her baby, they'll have her put in jail, or that she'll be living on the street, etc. So the law is made to protect women from this sort of exploitation. Even if you go to the U.S. totally voluntarily and with a good understanding of adoption, you'll still be in a strange place, and the government will want to be sure that you make a good decision, without coercion. So you are required to stay in your country until you give birth and make your decisions in the U.K.5. Under U.S. law, an internationally adopted child may be eligible for U.S. citizenship under certain conditions. If your child is born in the U.K., a Hague country, and is adopted by an American living in the U.S., in a manner that conforms to U.K. and Hague laws, he/she will probably get an IH-3 visa, which means that he/she will become a U.S. citizen as soon as he/she passes through Customs and Immigration at the U.S. airport where he/she lands with his/her new parents. A certificate of citizenship for him/her will be sent to the new parents automatically. The process is a little different for children from non-Hague countries and children whose adoptions are legal but don't meet certain U.S. requirements -- like the "orphan definition" -- and some of the children will need to be readopted in the U.S. in order to become automatic citizens, while others will need to be naturalized (made U.S. citizens by a more cumbersome, longer legal process).6. Under U.S. law, any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, even if his/her parents came to the country illegally. But because that can cause some people to try to come to the U.S. illegally to place their babies, or can cause some shady facilitators to bring pregnant women to the U.S. to deliver, the USCIS works very hard to prevent that from happening and to prosecute people who commit visa fraud. I would strongly urge you not to try to come to the U.S. to have your baby and place him/her for adoption.7. The bottom line is that you are going to need to go through an agency in your country to make an adoption plan for your baby. If you mention international adoption, you will probably be reminded that under the principles of the Hague Convention, international adoption should not be undertaken if a child can remain with his/her biological relatives and/or in his/her community or country. It should become an option only if there is no one who is qualified to adopt domestically, or if it is likely that the child will spend his/her life in impermanent foster care. Frankly, in the U.K., U.S., and most other English-speaking or Western European countries, there are far, far more families willing to adopt newborns, infants, and toddlers than there are reasonably healthy newborns, infants, and toddlers who need adoption. Prospective parents sometimes wait years to be matched with a baby in places like the U.K. and U.S.. The children who remain in foster care are usually those who are of school age (especially older boys) and those who have significant physical, mental, or emotional special needs. So if your baby is reasonably healthy, agencies will have no difficulty at all finding parents who have passed a homestudy and who are willing and able to adopt. One thing you should know is that the agency may have to determine for itself that the baby's father does not want to parent, before the child can be placed with an adoptive family.8. The good thing about going through a government agency, as you will have to do, is that the agency also has social workers who will talk to you about your decision to place your baby for adoption. If you have the slightest ambivalence, they will suggest options, like public assistance (welfare), scholarships, and so on, that might let you parent and still go to college. They may also remind you that birthfathers are obligated to provide child support if you choose to parent. And if you are still determined to place your baby, you can be sure that they will find a suitable family.Sharon

You raise some good questions about how international adoption works. 1. Ethical intercountry adoption recognizes that sovereign nations have the ability to enact laws to protect the most vulnerable of their citizens, including minor children. As a result, ethical intercountry adoption of a child requires adherence to the laws of the child's country of citizenship, with regard to whether he/she is adoptable and by whom. If your child is a UK citizen, then UK law will apply when determining who can adopt him/her and whether he/she can be placed internationally. 2. The Hague Convention on intercountry adoption, an international treaty ratified or acceded to by over 90 countries, codifies best practices in international adoption. It also makes it clear that the best interests of a child require the government of the child's country of citizenship to decide who may be adopted and by whom. Different countries will have different rules, but they should be based on the best interests of the child, as the government perceives them. As an example, while the U.S. and the U.K. permit single people to adopt, South Korea does not, because it believes that the best interests of a child are best protected if he/she has both a mother and a father who want to parent; as a result, whether I like it or not, I could not adopt from South Korea when I chose to adopt, because I am single. In any case, if you wish to place your baby for adoption, you will have to do so under U.K. rules, whether you like them or not. 3. Ethical intercountry adoption also requires that the laws of the country of the prospective adoptive parents also be followed, with regard to what people are qualified to adopt, and what children are allowed to immigrate to the U.S. The U.S. will NOT allow the immigration of an adopted child if the adoption does not conform to the laws of the child's country of citizenship, or if the prospective adoptive parents do not have both a completed homestudy in their U.S. state of residence and agreement from the USCIS that they are qualified to adopt and are unlikely to abuse or neglect a child or to place him or her in the foster care system or on the welfare rolls. If you gave birth to your child in the U.K. and tried to place him/her with a U.S. family, the child would not be given a U.S. permanent resident visa in his/her U.K. passport if the U.S. felt that the adoption was not legal under U.K. laws, and if the prospective parents did not have USCIS approval to bring an adopted child into the U.S. Even if the American parents somehow managed to obtain an adoption decree from the U.K., allowing you to relinquish your child to them, the U.S. would not grant the visa, because it would know that the correct legal process was not followed. Likewise, even if you chose a couple to adopt your child, but they didn't have a homestudy in their home state and USCIS approval, a visa would not be granted. 4. It is NOT legal, under U.S. law, for a woman to come to the U.S. to give birth and relinquish the child for adoption here. If the USCIS finds out that you are pregnant and thinking about adoption, it will not give you a visa. And if you lie to the USCIS in order to get a visa under these circumstances, you are committing a federal crime and can be prosecuted; at the very least, you and your child can be deported to the U.K. and not allowed to return. The USCIS is not being arbitrary in having these rules. The rules exist to prevent pregnant women from being exploited. In many countries, Americans have approached poor women who do not understand adoption and the finality of relinquishing a child, who may not even be literate in their own languages, and either given them money or lied to them, saying that they wanted to take their child to the U.S. for an education and that the child would return to them subsequently. They bring the women to the U.S., offer them trips to Disneyland, put them up in a hotel, give them three good meals a day, give them gifts, drive them around in a nice car, and so on. Then, when the babies are born, they insist that the women hand them over, even if the women have second thoughts after seeing their beautiful babies. This is totally unethical, in terms of good adoption practice. Any pregnant woman deserves a certain period of time after delivery to make a final decision on relinquishment of a child for adoption -- sometimes as much as 30 days, in certain states. But if a pregnant woman has been showered with gifts and trips and such, she may feel "obligated" to relinquish the child, even if she doesn't want to, and it will be hard for her to make a good decision. And the prospective adoptive parents and the facilitators who may have brought the woman to the U.S. may put pressure on the woman and even coerce her to relinquish. They may take the woman's passport, may not give her money, and may tell her that, if she doesn't give up her baby, they'll have her put in jail, or that she'll be living on the street, etc. So the law is made to protect women from this sort of exploitation. Even if you go to the U.S. totally voluntarily and with a good understanding of adoption, you'll still be in a strange place, and the government will want to be sure that you make a good decision, without coercion. So you are required to stay in your country until you give birth and make your decisions in the U.K. 5. Under U.S. law, an internationally adopted child may be eligible for U.S. citizenship under certain conditions. If your child is born in the U.K., a Hague country, and is adopted by an American living in the U.S., in a manner that conforms to U.K. and Hague laws, he/she will probably get an IH-3 visa, which means that he/she will become a U.S. citizen as soon as he/she passes through Customs and Immigration at the U.S. airport where he/she lands with his/her new parents. A certificate of citizenship for him/her will be sent to the new parents automatically. The process is a little different for children from non-Hague countries and children whose adoptions are legal but don't meet certain U.S. requirements -- like the "orphan definition" -- and some of the children will need to be readopted in the U.S. in order to become automatic citizens, while others will need to be naturalized (made U.S. citizens by a more cumbersome, longer legal process). 6. Under U.S. law, any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, even if his/her parents came to the country illegally. But because that can cause some people to try to come to the U.S. illegally to place their babies, or can cause some shady facilitators to bring pregnant women to the U.S. to deliver, the USCIS works very hard to prevent that from happening and to prosecute people who commit visa fraud. I would strongly urge you not to try to come to the U.S. to have your baby and place him/her for adoption. 7. The bottom line is that you are going to need to go through an agency in your country to make an adoption plan for your baby. If you mention international adoption, you will probably be reminded that under the principles of the Hague Convention, international adoption should not be undertaken if a child can remain with his/her biological relatives and/or in his/her community or country. It should become an option only if there is no one who is qualified to adopt domestically, or if it is likely that the child will spend his/her life in impermanent foster care. Frankly, in the U.K., U.S., and most other English-speaking or Western European countries, there are far, far more families willing to adopt newborns, infants, and toddlers than there are reasonably healthy newborns, infants, and toddlers who need adoption. Prospective parents sometimes wait years to be matched with a baby in places like the U.K. and U.S.. The children who remain in foster care are usually those who are of school age (especially older boys) and those who have significant physical, mental, or emotional special needs. So if your baby is reasonably healthy, agencies will have no difficulty at all finding parents who have passed a homestudy and who are willing and able to adopt. One thing you should know is that the agency may have to determine for itself that the baby's father does not want to parent, before the child can be placed with an adoptive family. 8. The good thing about going through a government agency, as you will have to do, is that the agency also has social workers who will talk to you about your decision to place your baby for adoption. If you have the slightest ambivalence, they will suggest options, like public assistance (welfare), scholarships, and so on, that might let you parent and still go to college. They may also remind you that birthfathers are obligated to provide child support if you choose to parent. And if you are still determined to place your baby, you can be sure that they will find a suitable family. Sharon

I will tell you that there are a lot of parents waiting for a healthy newborn in your country, so it's very unlikely that your child would grow up in care.

Is there anyone that you can talk to? Maybe a lawyer near you, so that you know what steps/options you have available?

I'm a bit late to reply, but if you're still reading OP, first of all «hugs». I'm sorry you're going through such a difficult time. I'm an adoptive mum in the UK.A child born in the UK can't generally be adopted abroad, the only exception is when the child has relatives who live abroad. The very few adoptions from the UK to the US happen in this case - to keep the child within their birth family. There is a specific court process which has to be followed, and the courts won't allow a child to be adopted abroad by unrelated parents if they could be adopted here because it wouldn't be found to be in the child's best interests to do that. If you give birth in the UK and you decide to relinquish your baby, it will be an adoption within the UK for certain. I can tell you how the whole process of adoption in the UK would work if you like, from beginning to end. However now I'll just say two important things. Firstly that if you give birth to a healthy baby (or indeed, a baby with most mild-moderate disabilities), an adoptive family will be found. There are many hundreds, indeed several thousand waiting parents, for whom adopting a child aged under 1 would be a dream come true. Your child would absolutely not be a burden, but a much longed for son or daughter. Your child would be very unlikely to spend their childhood in care - only if they had such a significant disability that several thousand parents all felt they couldn't cope with it. Secondly, if you were still decided on adoption after the birth, you would be allowed at the very least to state preferences about who the adoptive parents should be. You would be asked and could state a preference for family structure, religion, ethnicity etc. I can't guarantee that your preferences will be met because it very much depends on which parents are waiting for a child in your county at the time. However, if you ask for a common kind of family (a two parent family who are Christian, or non-practising/atheist) you are very likely to have your preferences met. It may be harder if you would like something which is uncommon in waiting parents (e.g. already having more than 2 or 3 children). Some councils will go further and actually show you profiles of waiting families, but your council may not. The final decision on who the family will be would be made based on which parents are felt to have the most to offer your child (that doesn't mean have the most money though). After parents have been found, you should be offered a meeting with them where you can find out more about them. I hope that is helpful to you, please ask if you want to know more about the UK process.

I'm a bit late to reply, but if you're still reading OP, first of all hugs˻. I'm sorry you're going through such a difficult time. I'm an adoptive mum in the UK. A child born in the UK can't generally be adopted abroad, the only exception is when the child has relatives who live abroad. The very few adoptions from the UK to the US happen in this case - to keep the child within their birth family. There is a specific court process which has to be followed, and the courts won't allow a child to be adopted abroad by unrelated parents if they could be adopted here because it wouldn't be found to be in the child's best interests to do that. If you give birth in the UK and you decide to relinquish your baby, it will be an adoption within the UK for certain. I can tell you how the whole process of adoption in the UK would work if you like, from beginning to end. However now I'll just say two important things. Firstly that if you give birth to a healthy baby (or indeed, a baby with most mild-moderate disabilities), an adoptive family will be found. There are many hundreds, indeed several thousand waiting parents, for whom adopting a child aged under 1 would be a dream come true. Your child would absolutely not be a burden, but a much longed for son or daughter. Your child would be very unlikely to spend their childhood in care - only if they had such a significant disability that several thousand parents all felt they couldn't cope with it. Secondly, if you were still decided on adoption after the birth, you would be allowed at the very least to state preferences about who the adoptive parents should be. You would be asked and could state a preference for family structure, religion, ethnicity etc. I can't guarantee that your preferences will be met because it very much depends on which parents are waiting for a child in your county at the time. However, if you ask for a common kind of family (a two parent family who are Christian, or non-practising/atheist) you are very likely to have your preferences met. It may be harder if you would like something which is uncommon in waiting parents (e.g. already having more than 2 or 3 children). Some councils will go further and actually show you profiles of waiting families, but your council may not. The final decision on who the family will be would be made based on which parents are felt to have the most to offer your child (that doesn't mean have the most money though). After parents have been found, you should be offered a meeting with them where you can find out more about them. I hope that is helpful to you, please ask if you want to know more about the UK process.