Niece Adoption

[andrew va thuy 0]

My wife and I are supporting my niece 9 year old niece. Her mom ( single ) is not very enthused to mothering her & would prefer we adopt her. I read an article on the internet that said per gov docs you need to be with the child for 2 years before adoption. Moreover it recommended child come here first. I think this may be possible for Philippino children but probably not for VN, and how would that work if the mom cant come ?

Since Thuy has just been in the US 1 year this week, that's not a very practical idea - even though she joint raised & took care of her niece. About 8 months ago we found a family and the niece now is with them/ Currently we send money to the family who watches over her.

.I dont know if this issue would be one Marc Ellis would consider. idea ? Any idea how I could inquire about this ? Thanks

[sara..... 371]

My wife and I are supporting my niece 9 year old niece. Her mom ( single ) is not very enthused to mothering her & would prefer we adopt her. I read an article on the internet that said per gov docs you need to be with the child for 2 years before adoption. Moreover it recommended child come here first. I think this may be possible for Philippino children but probably not for VN, and how would that work if the mom cant come ?

Since Thuy has just been in the US 1 year this week, that's not a very practical idea - even though she joint raised & took care of her niece. About 8 months ago we found a family and the niece now is with them/ Currently we send money to the family who watches over her.

.I dont know if this issue would be one Marc Ellis would consider. idea ? Any idea how I could inquire about this ? Thanks

Theres an adoption agency that gives out information at least they used to its called Plan Adoption its located in McMinnville oregon.......i know u would not want to go thur an agency to do it but at least they will have all of the current laws for that country u could even probably find an adoption agency where u live that would be willing to give u the information that ur looking for.......

sara

[Teacher Mark 53]

This is a bad time for adoptions there. Here is one story I came across:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/185/story/113035.html

There were several American families in limbo there waiting for paperwork to clear. The article says there is only one now.

My understanding has been that the child must be an orphan, but I could be wrong.

I'd call Marc Ellis and ask him. There's also an Attorney in D.C. mentioned in that article.

Edited March 23, 2008 by WideAwakeInTheUSA

[Teacher Mark 53]

Here's a link to an informative site (it was also in the article).

http://www.bringourchildrenhome.org/

"We're not here because parents want children, we are here because children need families. That's a very important difference. This is about taking care of children."

-Maura Harty, Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs during her November 2007 interview with Vietnam TV

We are a group of prospective adoptive parents in the process of adopting orphans from Vietnam. We are American citizens living across the United States, represented by multiple adoption agencies, but bound together by a single issue. While the Vietnamese government has approved our adoptions of orphans living in Vietnam, our US government is not processing the visa applications necessary for these children to enter the United States as children of American citizens.

- Adoption of Vietnamese children by Americans requires approval from the US government. Immigration (USCIS) makes sure that the child is an orphan as defined by US law. Department of State (DOS) issues the visa for the child to travel to the US.

- Last October, at least 20 visa denials (NOIDs) were issued to families who had already become the parents of Vietnamese children under Vietnamese law. The majority of these have been overturned, but many of these children still wait in foster care in Vietnam to come home.

- Last November, USCIS and DOS initiated a program they call “Orphans First,” pursuant to which Vietnamese children are classified as orphans prior to the time their adoptive parents travel to Vietnam.

- Before this program was instituted, visa approvals for Vietnamese adoptive children took 1-2 weeks. Approvals are now exceeding two months, in addition to the multiple months needed for an orphan's paperwork to be processed after referral.

- Adoption agencies report a very small percentage of visa applications having been approved under the new program (e.g., one agency has submitted over 75 I-600 applications since the first week of December, with only 7 having been completed as of 2/26/08).

- USCIS and DOS in Vietnam have not provided waiting families and adoption agencies with the status of their applications following delivery of their applications.

- Because of this “Orphans First” program, some Vietnamese orphanages are at capacity, unable to admit additional Vietnamese children in need of care, which could have serious repercussions on the health and well-being of the abandoned and relinquished children in Vietnam.

- Without these essential US government approvals, timely adoptions in Vietnam by Americans cannot proceed, and orphanages are struggling to provide heat, nourishment and adequate medical care for the orphans.

- Orphans who were to be adopted by Americans have died from pneumonia. Nine orphans recently died in northern Vietnam, and six more have been hospitalized (Vietnam News, 2/21/08).

Since the initiation of the “Orphans First” program, several hundred visa applications have piled up in Vietnam, resulting in a back-log of cases that the limited staff of our government has not been able to review and complete in the time frame they themselves proposed. Because of this, hundreds of orphans in Vietnam, all of whom have families in the United States waiting to welcome them home, are spending many extra months in an institution. Every day a child spends in an institution creates a greater risk that the child will develop reactive attachment disorder. Furthermore, many of these children either have special needs or have medical needs that are not currently severe, but require care to prevent them from becoming severe.

Orphans should come first. It is time for the “Orphans First” program to start living up to its name by eliminating the red tape that is jeopardizing the health and well being of Vietnamese orphans awaiting loving homes in the United States.

The goal of this website is to inform and educate the public and media of the adoption issues currently happening in Vietnam. We certainly respect the right of the United States to conduct their due diligence before accepting an adoptive child into the country, but the lack of communication and significantly extended timelines leave us very concerned. At this point many of the referred children are over eight to nine months old, lying in a crib with other children, all wrapped in towels, or sleeping on a mat on the floor of an unheated orphanage during a winter of record cold in Vietnam. Although we hope they are receiving the best care that is possible, we all agree that having a child in an orphanage instead of a loving home is not in the best interest of that child.

Please help us to ensure that the best interests of Vietnamese orphans remains a priority. Contact your state's representatives in Congress about this distressing situation. Sample letters are available for use in the "How To Help" section of the website.

This site was last updated on 3/22/08

Unbelievable. If our Government is so worried about child trafficking and the welfare of children then they need to help out. We always seem to have enough money available to create orphans.

Edited March 23, 2008 by WideAwakeInTheUSA