Thank you for your interest in our adoption programs. At this time American Adoptions has decided to temporarily suspend taking and working with couples living abroad who wish to adopt in the United States. American Adoptions will only begin accepting couples abroad once a country has successfully completed 5 to 10 infant/newborn adoptions from the U.S. American Adoptions will begin posting by country once these countries meet this standard and American Adoptions feels comfortable in a specific country. A successful adoption would include from the beginning (application) to end (finalization). American Adoptions is looking for stability in the adoption processes from countries processing U.S. adoptions.
Exceptions to this would be two U.S. citizens living on a military base or two U.S. citizens living abroad who are domiciled with states back in the U.S. and have the necessary paperwork to prove it per that state’s regulations.
We will not accept situations where one person is a U.S. citizen and their spouse is not because of changing opinions on processing these types of adoptions.
The reason for change in agency policy is we cannot guarantee any level of service on these adoptions. While American Adoptions has been and remains confident that American Adoptions can complete an adoption in the U.S. with an international couple in some states, we feel it would be irresponsible to continue taking on clients that we are not confident we can finalize their adoptions, or that their countries will recognize the finalization of their adoptions. Many of the factors in these kind of adoptions are out of our control and do not allow us the ability to know with any level of certainty whether an adoption done between the U.S. and a country abroad will be approved.
Issues we have seen develop and reasoning behind our decision:
Central Authorities’ changing opinions on approving adoptions with the U.S.
Countries’ accepting older children adoptions with the U.S. because they feel it better fits their description of special needs vs. not sure or unwilling to approve infant/newborn placements.
We have watched and experienced some concerning situations where these couples come to the United States only to return to their home state and have issues with VISA’s, passports, citizenship, etc.
Another concern American Adoptions has is if a child’s adoption cannot be finalized for adoption (or takes years to achieve this) with the couple abroad and American Adoptions or the professionals we work with maintain being the legal guardian for extended periods of time. For example, in the U.S. currently this process may take days to months or maybe a year in most cases. American Adoptions apprehension now is if these countries’ changing opinions take years to change, or if a country never changes their opinion on some of these issues, then we as U.S. adoption providers are responsible for these children. Families would have to contact us for legal permission for medical treatment, and in some cases, because the adoption is not finalized some families could argue we owe the medical bills for these children. Our agency is not prepared, nor set up for this type of service.
Along with these growing concerns is the last couple of years many U.S. professionals (attorneys, agencies, etc.) we work with here are not comfortable processing adoptions of international couples here in the U. S. because of all of the ongoing changes. This changing position by many U.S. providers has limited the number of states or areas we can show prospective abroad adoptive clients, thus increasing their wait times. We used to be able to show these couples to at least 15 or 20 states in the U.S. The list of states we can show couples abroad is now down to just a handful of adoption providers/states that are willing to work with international couples. In addition U.S. adoption professionals (attorney’s and agencies) we work with once comfortable in processing adoptions of couples abroad are now not comfortable processing adoptions because of all of the ongoing changes. It is now not as easy to find professionals in the US willing to help out with these types of adoptions making them harder to complete.
Couples abroad choosing to adopt in the U.S. are some of the best couples we work with, but we have seen in the past that these couples become very frustrated and upset that the process takes longer and that some of these reasons stated above prevent them from finalizing their adoption. When these couples get upset they start out upset with the process, but over time they become frustrated with American Adoptions and are our services. We are very protective of our reputation. We know word of mouth is one of the best types of advertising out there. A concern we have is if we take on families and process adoptions but cannot finalize these adoptions for years -- or at all – that we are going to have a bad reputation with couples abroad, countries (governments and officials) and adoption professionals.
For Central Authority contact information in your country, please click on the below link:
First we wanted to thank all the people at American Adoptions who helped us with …read more
Mission Statement:
American Adoptions, a private adoption agency founded on the belief that lives of children can be bettered through adoption, provides safe adoption services to children, birth parents and adoptive families by educating, supporting and coordinating necessary services for adoptions throughout the United States. For more information on American Adoptions please call 1-800-ADOPTION (236-7846).
