El Salvador

December 2, 2015

A good place to begin is with the adoption website of the U.S. State Department at adoption.state.gov. Go to the drop-down box called "Learn About a Country" and select El Salvador. When you get to that country's adoption page, click on "Expand all."

As a bit of a summary:

1. El Salvador, like the U.S., has ratified the Hague Convention on international adoption, designed to protect children, their birthparents, and their adoptive families. As a result, you MUST use the Hague adoption process, because you are living in the U.S. If you try to use the Salvadoran domestic process, any child you adopt will NOT qualify for a visa to enter the U.S. It does not matter that your spouse is Salvadoran, as long as one of you is a U.S. citizen and you live in the U.S.

2. To meet U.S. requirements, one of you must be a U.S. citizen, and that the children you are adopting are under age 16 and orphans, as defined in the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. Basically, you cannot adopt children who have been living with their two parents, even if they are your relatives. The sole exception to the rule mandating adoption of children under 16 is in cases where you have already adopted a bio sibling of the children, in which case you may file your I-800 before the new children turn 18. You must also demonstrate that you are financially, morally, mentally, and physically able to provide for the adopted child, as documented in your homestudy.

3. To meet Salvadoran requirements, you must be at least 25 years old and at least 15 years older than the children to be adopted. If you are married, you must be in a heterosexual marriage, as El Salvador doesn't recognize gay marriage. The Hague authorities in El Salvador will want to ensure that there is no appropriate domestic placement option for the child, and that international adoption is the only viable option. You will need to complete your adoption in El Salvador, and cannot get a decree of guardianship to bring the child to the U.S. for adoption. Because you reside in the U.S., you do NOT have to live with the child in El Salvador for a year before the adoption is final. However, the adoption cannot be completed until the courts rule that the children are legally free for adoption, which can take a lot of time.

4. Because El Salvador is Hague compliant, you MUST use a U.S. placement agency that is licensed in a U.S. state, approved by the Salvadoran government to place children with people in the U.S., and Hague-accredited by the U.S. State Department. The agency does not have to be located in your home state, but you will need to have a Hague homestudy by a provider licensed to do them in your state of residence. Homestudies generally take from 1-3 months, and you cannot proceed until you have homestudy approval. Be aware that you MUST have a U.S. placement agency, even though you have identified the children on your own; you cannot do a completely independent adoption.

5. Once you have completed your homestudy, and I'll be happy to tell you more about homestudies if you wish, you will need to complete the I-800A form located on the USCIS website and send it to the USCIS with a copy of your homestudy report, various documents mentioned on the website, and a fee. Since you have already identified the kids you plan to adopt, it is possible to skip this step and roll it in to the later I-800 step, but frankly, it could delay you in country for quite a while. The I-800A is designed to approve YOU as prospective parents, to bring an orphan into the U.S. (You may specify that you are applying to adopt two boys, and don't have to fill out the form twice.)

4. Once you have homestudy and USCIS approval, your placement agency will help you to prepare a dossier of documents about your family, for sending to the Salvadoran government, and obtain any necessary seals to prove that the documents are authentic. Since you have already identified the children to be adopted, you will also need to ensure that the Salvadorans receive all of the necessary paperwork on the children, as well, such as birth certificates. Your agency will send everything to the appropriate Salvadoran authorities.

5. If the Salvadoran government gives approval for you to adopt the children, you should NOT run down to El Salvador immediately to finalize. You will first need to file an I-800 application to obtain permission to immigrate the children to the U.S. -- your agency will give you instructions. If approved, the USCIS will notify the Salvadoran government. The Salvadoran government is not supposed to finalize a Hague adoption until it has what is called an Article 5 letter from the USCIS is received. Even if it is willing to finalize your adoption before getting the Article 5 letter, you should not proceed, because, if for some reason the I-800 is not approved, and you have finalized an adoption, you will have legal, moral, and financial responsibility for the children, but will not be allowed to bring them to the U.S.

6. Once the Salvadoran government receives the Article 5 letter, your agency should verify that the government has all of your paperwork, and has pronounced the children officially relinquished for adoption. Only then can it help you plan your travel to adopt.

7. Once you complete the adoption in El Salvador, you will need to get paperwork that will allow you to bring your children into the U.S., such as new birth certificates with their new names and your names as parents, the children's adoption decrees, the children's Salvadoran passports, and their medical exam reports from a U.S. Embassy-approved clinic.

8. The most important step will be going to the U.S. Embassy to actually get the children's immigrant visas. Even though you have an Article 5 letter and have filed your I-800, this step is still required. In some cases, if fraudulent paperwork is suspected or there are concerns that the birthparents of the children may not have understood that they irrevocably gave up their parental rights, the Embassy may insist on further investigation, requiring you to remain in El Salvador longer than you planned.

9. All in all, the State Department says that it sometimes takes three years or more to complete an adoption from El Salvador. While the fact that you have pre-identified children may shorten the process slightly, and working with a highly qualified American agency will also help, be aware that there may actually be increased scrutiny of the adoptiosn by both the Salvadoran and the American government, because identified adoptions are sometimes viewed as at high risk of paperwork irregularities and adoption fraud. At best, count on the process taking at least 18 months. The State Department also says that you may need to visit El Salvador a few times during the process, although there may be some things that a Salvadoran attorney who agrees to work with your agency can do for you.

10. You will note. on the State Department website, that in recent years, Americans have completed ten or fewer adoptions a year from El Salvador. In most cases, when numbers are this low, you can assume that:

a. Most of the adoptions were by relatives, not prospective parents unrelated to the children.

b. The adoption process is so complicated, time consuming, or fraught with legal and ethical problems that most agencies don't want to work there and few families want to adopt there.

This should not stop you from trying to adopt the children, if you truly want to parent them. However, you need to go into the adoption with your eyes wide open; do not expect to bring the children home quickly or without a lot of work and expense on your part.

Sharon