Adopting a child as GC holder

[Maria2k3 0]

Hi together,

my husband and I were wondering if it was possible for us to adopt a child when one of the soon to be foster parents is a non US-citizen and just holds their GreenCard? We are still waiting to remove conditions sometime next year!

Any advise if we are going to have some issues would be apprciated!

Thanks

[aaron2020 11,651]

Adoption and foster parenting are completely different things. Don't know why you would describe someone adopting as a soon to be foster parent.

If this is a domestic US adoption, then there's no problem.

If this is a foreign child, then there are major complications. There are very specific rules to bring an adopted child to the US. This is to prevent fraud when family adopts other family members to give them an immigration benefit.

Who is this child that you are considering adopting?

[Maria2k3 0]

Hi and thx for the fast reply!

No specific actions or steps have been taken yet. Just wanted to know if it would be possible for us

with one being a NON-US Citizen. But if we go and go ahead we would for sure adopt a US born child,

like you said, everything else would be too much of a hassle.

Is there anything else I need to know?

[aaron2020 11,651]

Hi and thx for the fast reply!

No specific actions or steps have been taken yet. Just wanted to know if it would be possible for us

with one being a NON-US Citizen. But if we go and go ahead we would for sure adopt a US born child,

like you said, everything else would be too much of a hassle.

Is there anything else I need to know?

There is no problem with an LPR adopting a US child.

This is not an immigration matter since no immigration benefit needs to be sought for the child.

[Kajikit 65]

You have to have been married for (I believe) five years to be eligible for adoption... but citizenship status isn't an issue as long as you're legal.

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

You have to have been married for (I believe) five years to be eligible for adoption.

Huh? No you don't.

There are foreign countries that have requirements about this, but there is no marriage length requirement that I have ever heard of in the US.

[Kajikit 65]

Huh? No you don't.

There are foreign countries that have requirements about this, but there is no marriage length requirement that I have ever heard of in the US.

To quote directly from the FAQ for an adoption website:

Foster care adoption is not expensive and financial assistance is available for parents who choose this path. Adoptive families are as diverse as the children waiting to be adopted.

However, there are requirements for other types of adoption. If you adopt internationally or privately with an attorney or agency, parents are typically under 40, are financially stable, and have been married for at least three years.

It's years since we looked into it so I forgot what the requirement was... if you want to use an agency rather than take a child from the foster care system, there ARE specific requirements and we didn't meet them - for one thing, my husband was too old, and neither of our health was good enough. The bar for private adoptions is ludicrously high - you basically have to be young, healthy, and rich to even think about it, or else to have already raised a family of your own and want to add to it (many of the Christian agencies just love to place children into large Christian homes...). Then we thought about fostering but we weren't eligible for that either because you have to have at least two bedrooms for the children to use since boys and girls aren't allowed to share if they're over 2 years old, even if they're siblings. The problem with using the foster system is that there's a high likelihood that the adoption will fail because the family wants the kid/s back... and they can turn around and take them because they're 'blood relatives'. So you've been lovingly attached to this kid and then you just don't have them any more...

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

I hear you, I just was sure there wasn't a law. We've looked into it as well, so I have some background in it. I know some of the agencies even make you stop fertility treatments while you are waiting, etc. I know they can be very restrictive. For us, private adoption isn't worth the cost, but we are definitely open to doing a sibling group through the waiting children in foster care. Then again, I dislike the baby years so it works out.

I'm sorry to here that the private agencies didn't work out for you, they can be so picky especially with so few babies that are being placed up for adoption.