Adopting from India- Permanent resident not a citizen

Thanks Emma for your immediate reply. Both, myself and my wife are from India. I was thinking of adopting from India, find a job in someother country and wait there till I get the child back into the US. If I am in canada, then it might be easy for me to come back and maintain my status in the US. What do you think? I think both of us can find a job in Canada. I am trying to find out the adoption rules in canada. Thanks Krishnan

Krishnan, Were you planning on applying for the I 130 or wait for your citizenship and apply for the I 600. Either way till you can bring the child to US you would need to maintain your status. To maintain your residency status you cannot leave the country for more than 6 months at a time. You could apply for I 131 (before you leave US) which allows you to leave the country for upto 2 years at a time( given at the discretion of the Consulate) . Also if you plan on applying for your citizenship after 5 years from getting your green card you need to stay in US for 30 months during the 5 year period. Either way you might have to stay out of US for a few years till you can get either the I 130 or I 600 approved whichever is earlier. When can you apply for your citizenship? I do not know anything about the rules for adoption in Canada. You would need to talk to a adoption lawyer in Canada. Have you thought about domestic adoption in US ?

Hi Parvi, Emma I just found this thread through a search. My husband and I are Indian citizens and completed finger-printing last year. We do not have our Green Cards yet. During your research and dicussions with lawyers/INS, did you identify any options for Green Card or potential Green Card holders, other than the 2yr + 3 yr waits. I am wondering if I have the option to refuse my green card and go back to an H1.. --tini

Tini, Even H1 visa holders will have to stay with the child for 2 years before applying for H4 visa for the child. Check out this web site [url]http://travel.state.gov/ir_petitions.html[/url] . Though you could try to bring the child here on a visitors visa during the 2 years period. I am not sure what the waiting period is for a H4 application to get approved. You could find that out from the INS (either call or visit them , they are very helpfull). If the waiting period is small enough then maybe one of you could decline your green card & go ahead with the adoption, stay with the child for 2 years and then apply for the H4. The only other option available for non us-citizens to adopt within a short period of time is to do domestic adoption(adoption within US) . The only problem that you might have with this would be to identify a birth mother who is willing to select you as the adoptive parents. You could have better luck with this if you went with a bigger agency that did advertisements in big cities. Smaller agencies might not have luck finding a birth mother who is open enough to choose an Indian couple as against a American couple. Good luck and let me know if you need more information regarding both International or Domestic adoption. Emma

My husband was born in India but a naturalized citizen when we adopted. INS is your stumbling block, you do not mention age, but in India they do not want more than 40 years difference between the youngest parent and the child although we by passed that by taking a child over 1 year, that was considered a special need placement, also sibling groups qualify in some situations. So you have to work with in INS guidlines as well as beat the age requirements. Indian families are given preference for adoptions in India so that is good for you. Also in India there is Hindu adoption where the father adopts with the mother's permission, this was the best choice for us, we then readopted in US so that I had legal rights also. At this point you might contact a Congressman, through a friend who is a citizen. As I found with my neice's visa, they do pull some weight at the Consulate in Bombay. Visa that are turned down miraculously get approved when a letter from a Congressman is on file. While this will not solve all your problems, it might shorten the time a bit. It seems the laws of this country are not in your favor and for that I would like to offer my apologies, the beurocrats do tend to be overly suspicious, and overly fond of throwing up roadblocks. I wish you the best in your quest to find a child, you sound determined, your child will come home. Good luck

Hi: Any idea if the same problems exist for a L1 visa?. Thanks, Alan

Hello Emma and Parvi, I am so glad i stumbled on this link. I am in a similar situation, a green card holder wanting to adopt. The laws are ridiculous and dont make sense. I am sure u probably have seen this petition. If you have not please check this link out. Hoping to hear some great news soon. [url]http://www.petitiononline.com/nradopt/petition.html[/url]

Hi Folks, I can really feel how people like me are feeling who are far away from US citizenship, cannot have their biological child and can't even adopt from India for the complex US rules. A petition has already been sent to US department addressing the President and its receipt has been acknowledged by the department which you can see in http:/www.petitiononline.com/nradopt. You can sign for changing this law and we can all be hopeful and optimistic. Thanks.

I have already read the petition and signed it. Thanks

I found this thread today and I know its been a long long time since it started. Almost 8 years. I just want to know if the laws have changed and is there now a possibility of adopting an Indian child if the parents have green card.

Unfortunately, I must tell you that there have been no changes in the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. To apply for an adoption visa for a child, at least one spouse must be a U.S. citizen. Also unfortunately, there will be some people on these boards, making recommendations that are illegal, often out of lack of understanding of U.S. law. Be careful, and if something appears "too good to be true", it usually isn't. As an example, you CANNOT bring a child from India to the U.S. on a visitors' visa, and then adopt him/her here. A visitors' visa is not a permanent resident visa. If you claim that the child will just be visiting, knowing that you do not plan for him/her to return to India, then you are committing visa fraud, which is a federal crime. Non-citizens who commit crimes in the U.S. will be deported to their home countries and not permitted to return. Moreover, both the U.S. and India have ratified the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption, an important treaty. The treaty makes it clear that the laws of the child's country of citizenship must be followed, with respect to adoption. India requires that all adoptions by foreigners, including people of Indian origin living overseas, follow a particular process, which you can read about on the website of the U.S. State Department and the website of CARA, India's central adoption authority. While the actual finalization of an Indian adoption may occur in the U.S., both the child and the adoptive parents must be approved by CARA, and the child must be eligible for an IR-4 visa, which won't be granted if neither adoptive parent is a U.S. citizen. As another example, I have seen posts which advocate an even more blatant violation of U.S. law. These posts suggest that an Indian couple identify a pregnant woman in India, via relatives or friends, who agrees to place her baby for adoption with the couple. They suggest that the non-citizen wife should pretend to be pregnant, and apply to visit India for a couple of months, to be with her relatives. When the actual pregnant woman is due to deliver, they say, it is relatively easy to bribe an Indian hospital to give the baby to the woman from the U.S. and issue a birth certificate naming the U.S. couple as the biological parents. The woman can then return to her husband in the U.S., with the baby that she allegedly bore. Again, THESE ACTIONS ARE FELONIES, serious crimes under U.S. law. While an occasional person may get away with obtaining a baby by this route, it is more likely that the crime will be discovered, and that the family trying to skirt U.S. law will lose their visas, get deported, and not be permitted to return to the U.S. Indian law also does not condone this form of "adoption". Falsification of birth records is a crime. If any payments were made to the birthmother, to make her willing to relinquish her baby, that is considered a criminal act. And an international adoption process is clearly defined by CARA, which would not condone this aaproach to acquiring a baby. Sharon

The retarded U.S. law that permanent residents cannot adopt internationally has not changed. You can sign a corresponding online petition: [url=http://www.petitiononline.com/nradopt/petition.html]Petition Online[/url] I was permanent resident myself and adopted twice domestically, no other option. I became U.S. citizen in June and immediately after that started my third adoption. This time it is international! I do not see the dumb law about permanent residents will be changing any when soon. The truth is that our politicians just don't care. There is nothing in for them, it's that simple. So what if we permanent residents take a hit, so what if we have to adopt domestically which is HARD for non-mainstream people like e.g. non-Christian immigrants, so what if we have to wait until citizenship - which takes well over ten years form beginning to end! In the past, there were some permanent residents who did illegal adoptions. The U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to punish ALL permanent residents. Which raises the interesting questions: 1. Why do you punish ALL permanent residents so severely? Why can we not just agree that permanent residents e.g. adopt through licensed agencies? 2. What makes you think that permanent residents, once they have become citizens, might NOT attempt illegal adoptions? 3. Is the problem really "permanent residents" or is the problem really "illegal adoptions"? If it's the latter, why don't you just focus on that? (Now here's a thought). On this board, there were comments like "then they should just adopt domestically" (reminds me of French Queen Marie Antoinette who said "let them eat cake" when she heard that the people were starving), or "just go back to your home country" (any idea how hard it was to get our foot into the U.S.??) etc. Somebody even said something about permanent residents trying to "evade duties" by not being citizens etc. You don't know whether to laugh or cry about stuff like that. Probably cry. I am glad the permanent resident ban on international adoption is behind me now but my heart goes out to those who are affected by it ... :(

Hi all, I am aware of the fact that I can not adopt from India with Green Card status. That is the reason why I have applied for domestic infant adoption. My home study is almost done. However, recently a family friend of mine was brutally tortured by her husband and they were not ready to accept her pregnancy ( baby girl is the main issue, I think). They even tried to kill her. She managed to escape and now she wants to have a new life of her own. Since she knows me, she wants me to have her baby and have an open relation/contact with her. Btw she is marrying my cousin brother and it is their decision- it is not about money or me forcing them to take this decision. Any idea how I could bring this child legally here? We could be her foster parent for now and think about adoption later! Any help/suggestion will be highly appreciated.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any way that you can bring the child to the U.S. for an extended period. With an older child, it is sometimes possible to obtain an education visa, but with a baby, there is no option unless the child has a medical condition for which treatment is not readily available in India. There is no visa category that involves foster parenting a child from overseas. I would suggest that you contact a reputable American immigration/adoption attorney, who can help you explore the options, and possibly come up with one that I have not thought about. Sharon

Thanks Sharon for replying. I will consult my adoption agency to see if anything is at all possible.