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Intercountry Adoption: Where Do I Start?: Meeting Immigration and Citizenship Requirements

This information was taken directly from Child Welfare Information Gateway

Meeting Immigration and Citizenship Requirements

The legal adoption or guardianship process begins after you accept a referral for a specific child. In some countries, families are required to travel to the child’s country of origin to finalize the adoption in the foreign court. In others, guardianship of the child will be transferred to the prospective adoptive parents or to their adoption services provider, but they must finalize the adoption in U.S. courts to fulfill USCIS requirements. Even if a trip is not required, experiencing your child’s country of origin firsthand can give you a deeper understanding of what his or her life was like before joining your family. Traveling with a group of other prospective adoptive parents can help you form supportive relationships with other adoptive families that can last for years.

In the case of a child from a Convention country, it is important that you do not adopt or accept legal custody of the child until:

  1. USCIS has provisionally approved the petition to classify the Convention adoptee as an immediate relative (Form-I-800) AND
  2. The U.S. Department of State has advised the country of origin’s Central Authority, which is the entity that ensures the adoption process is safeguarded, that the prospective adoptive parents have been found suitable and the child appears eligible to come to the United States if adopted or if legal custody for the purpose of adoption is granted

There may be additional actions required by U.S. immigration law, State law, your child’s country of origin, or your adoption provider before or after you bring your child home. Requirements will vary depending on the type of immigrant visa your child received. Your adoption provider can tell you more about what must be done in your specific case.

You may need to:

Submit postplacement reports and pictures. Not all countries require follow-up reports; some require annual reports for 5 years or perhaps until the child is 18 years old. Ensuring these reports get filed in a timely manner helps foster positive relationships between the United States and your child’s country of origin, paving the way for future intercountry adoption.

Readopt your child in a U.S. court and obtain a U.S. birth certificate. It is generally a good idea to readopt if your child is not from a Convention country. If your child is from a Convention country, readoption is not required. Your adoption provider should provide you with the forms you need to obtain U.S. citizenship for your child. For more information on State laws and why readopting in the United States may be beneficial in some cases, visit Child Welfare Information Gateway at https://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/types/intercountry/readoption.cfm.

Obtain proof of your child’s U.S. citizenship. Either a Certificate of Citizenship issued by USCIS or a U.S. passport provides proof of U.S. citizenship for children who become citizens through adoption. (See the following box titled “Proof of Citizenship” for more information.)

Obtain a Social Security number for your child. The Social Security Administration will assign your child a social security number before you obtain proof of U.S. citizenship; however, you will need to provide proof that a full and final adoption has been completed. Records will not show your child is a U.S. citizen until you provide this proof. For more information, refer to Social Security Numbers for Children at http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10023.pdf.

Proof of Citizenship

A Certificate of Citizenship issued by USCIS or a U.S. passport issued by the U.S. Department of State provides proof of U.S. citizenship for children who become citizens through adoption. This is different from the certificate provided with Convention adoptions, which is issued at the time of adoption, affixed to the foreign adoption decree by the U.S. Department of State, and states that the adoption is in compliance with the Convention. The process for obtaining the Certificate of Citizenship depends on the type of visa your child was issued.

IR-3 or IH-3Visas: A child who has a full and final adoption in his or her country of origin and who enters the United States on an IR-3 visa (non-Convention adoption) or an IH-3 visa (Convention adoption) becomes a citizen automatically upon entering the country if he or she is under 18. In these cases, the child will receive a Certificate of Citizenship from USCIS within 45 days of entering the United States. (There are exceptions to this process for U.S. military employees and those who work for the U.S. Department of State.)

IR-4 or IH-4Visas: If your child entered the United States on an IR-4 visa (non-Convention adoption) or IH-4 (Convention adoption), you must finalize your child’s adoption in a U.S. court to satisfy Child Citizenship Act requirements (unless the child was officially adopted in the child’s country and the child’s State of residence in the United States recognizes the foreign adoption without a requirement to readopt). Your child automatically will become a U.S. citizen on the day the adoption is finalized in the United States provided the child is under the age of 18 on the date of adoption. You may then apply for a Certificate of Citizenship by submitting Form N-600, Application for Certificate of Citizenship (http://www.uscis.gov/n-600). If these steps are not completed, the child may not have attained U.S. citizenship. See http://adoption.state.gov/us_visa_for_your_child/citizenship.php for more information.

Check the stamp on your child’s passport to see which type of visa your child was issued.

It is possible to obtain a passport from the State Department (see http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html) for a child before receiving the Certificate of Citizenship, but the adoption must be full and final according to Federal law. The “full effect” of a foreign adoption decree means that adoptive parents and adopted children have the same rights and obligations as they would have if a State court had issued the adoption decree.


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Resource

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2014). Intercountry adoption: Where do I start? Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.