international step child adoption

[obladi 0]

My wife recently arrived in Oregon on a K-1 visa. I would like to adopt her son however it seems unclear as to weather it is best to do an international adoption or wait to do a standard step parent adoption after 6 months. We are trying to avoid the lawyer fees as it is just money that would be better spent on family stuff. Any advice would be appreciated from those who have gone through this process.

thank you,

Luke

[aaron2020 11,651]

Step parent is easier and less expensive at this point.

[cerebus407 16]

What Aaron said. Just petition as CR2 stepchild. If it is within one year of the K1, they can still follow to join as K2 as well. No need to do adoption, not for immigration purposes anyway. Only benefit that adoption would incur is that the kid would be US citizen at time of entry instead of being a greencard holder for 3-5 years. Given the costs involved with international adoption, not sure the benefit is worth it when they'll be citizens eventually anyway and GC holders have same rights as citizens in almost all respects.