Ten questions families ask about adopting a child from another country

There is a particular kind of courage in a couple who sit at a kitchen table, look at a stack of forms and decide to bring a child home from half a world away. They are not seeking a government program. They are doing what families have done since before there were governments, and they have walked straight into the thickest regulatory forest in the country.

I admire them, and I want to make their path clearer. Intercountry adoption in the United States is governed by a treaty and by federal law, and a family that knows the rules before it starts saves money, time and heartbreak. This guide answers ten questions in plain terms. It is a general map, not legal advice, and it will not replace an accredited adoption service provider or an attorney who handles these cases. Rules, fees and country programs change, so verify everything on the State Department's adoption website before you act.

The legal frame

1. What law governs adopting a child from another country?

Two layers. The first is a treaty: the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, concluded in 1993. It sets standards between countries so that adoptions are in the child's best interests, so that children are not abducted, sold or trafficked, and so that each country's authorities cooperate. The Convention entered into force for the United States on April 1, 2008.

The second layer is federal law. Congress passed the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 to implement the Convention. It designates the State Department as the United States' Central Authority, directs the accreditation of adoption service providers, and sets the procedures for Convention adoptions. A separate set of immigration provisions, older than the treaty, governs adoptions from countries outside the Convention, through the "orphan" process described below.

In addition, the child's country of origin has its own adoption law, which controls who may adopt, who may be adopted, and what must happen on that end. And your own state has a role: finalizing or recognizing the adoption, and licensing the home study. So a family typically deals with four sets of rules at once: the treaty, federal law, the foreign country's law and the state's. That is why a professional who knows all four is worth a great deal.

2. What does the State Department do?

As the Central Authority, the State Department, does several jobs. It oversees the accreditation system for adoption service providers. It communicates with other countries' central authorities. It publishes country-by-country information about each program, including what the foreign country requires and whether the program is open, restricted or suspended. And it issues the Hague documents that allow a child's visa to proceed.

The State Department does not place children, run orphanages or pick families. It sets and checks the framework. The agencies that do the matching and the paperwork are private, accredited providers, and the department's website lists them. For a family, the practical lesson is that the State Department's country pages are the first place to check, because they are current in a way no book or blog can be.

The two paths

3. What is the difference between a Hague adoption and an orphan adoption?

It depends on whether the child's country is a party to the Hague Adoption Convention.

• Hague process. If the child's country is a Convention partner, the family follows the Convention process. You must use an accredited or approved adoption service provider as the primary provider. The family first applies to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for a determination that it is suitable and eligible to adopt, on Form I-800A. After the child is matched and the foreign country issues its approvals, the family files Form I-800 to classify the child as a Convention adoptee, and the State Department issues the Hague documents.
• Orphan process. If the child's country is not a Convention partner, the family uses the older immigration route under which the child must qualify as an orphan under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The family files Form I-600A, an application for advance processing of an orphan petition, and then Form I-600. The definition of "orphan" is technical, and it matters: for example, a child with two living parents generally does not qualify, and the rule has particular requirements about the child's parents' abandonment or inability to care for the child.

The two paths overlap in spirit but differ in forms, requirements and protections. Which path applies depends on the child's country, so the first question to ask any provider is: is this a Hague country?

4. What visa does the child get?

For a Hague adoption, the child receives an immigrant visa in the IH category, such as IH-3 or IH-4. For an orphan adoption, the child receives a different immigrant visa category. Which one applies depends on how and where the adoption is completed. I will not walk through every variation here, because the details turn on facts and change with the regulations. The point is that the child enters as an immigrant and the visa category is tied to how the adoption was done. Your provider and the State Department's country page will tell you which applies.

Closed doors

5. What happens when a country closes to adoption?

It happens, and it is the single biggest risk in the process, so a family should hear about it at the start. Countries open and close their adoption programs for reasons that include concerns about fraud, corruption, changes in the government and diplomatic disputes.

The clearest example is Russia. In December 2012, the Russian government enacted a law, signed by President Putin on December 28, 2012 and effective January 1, 2013, banning adoptions of Russian children by American citizens. The ban came during a diplomatic dispute: the U.S. Congress had just passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on certain Russian officials, and the adoption ban was widely understood as retaliation. The law also ended the bilateral adoption agreement between the two countries. The ban left families in the middle of the process, some of whom had already met the children they hoped to adopt. The painful lesson is that children were the casualty of a quarrel between governments.

Other countries have restricted or closed their programs, including Guatemala, whose adoptions to the United States ended around 2008 amid concerns about irregularities in the process, and others have suspended programs for periods. I do not want to give you a list that may be outdated, so check the State Department's pages for each country's current status.

For a family, the practical response is to choose a program with eyes open: ask the agency how long the program has been operating, what happens to families in process if it closes, and what happens to fees. Do not choose a country on the strength of a brochure.

The practical questions

6. What does it cost?

I will answer in general terms only, because costs vary by country, by agency, by year and by the child's needs. The expenses typically fall into groups: the home study and the agency's fees; fees to the foreign country, including court costs and the child's care before placement; immigration fees to the United States government for the forms; travel and lodging for one or more trips; translation and document authentication; and post-placement reports. In total, intercountry adoption costs a family many thousands of dollars, and often tens of thousands, and the final figure is rarely the first one quoted.

Three practical suggestions. Ask every agency for a written fee schedule that lists each category and when each payment is due. Ask which fees are refundable if a program closes or a match falls through. And ask how the agency handles its accounts, because the accreditation rules include financial standards. For the federal side, there is an adoption tax credit in the Internal Revenue Code, and its amount and income limits change from year to year, so read the IRS's current instructions or ask a tax professional. I cannot tell you what you qualify for.

7. How long does it take?

There is no honest single number. Timelines depend on the country, the child's age and needs, the foreign court's pace, the agency, and the U.S. government's processing, and they have varied widely over the years. A family should plan for a process measured in many months to several years and should be wary of any agency that promises a date. A good rule: the provider that tells you the truth about delays is a better partner than the one that tells you what you want to hear.

8. Do I have to use an agency, and how do I avoid fraud?

For a Hague adoption, yes. The Convention requires an accredited or approved adoption service provider, and only accredited or approved providers may act as the primary provider in a Convention case. For other adoptions, agencies are still how most families proceed, and some countries require them.

To protect yourself:

1. Check accreditation on the State Department's website, which lists accredited providers. Do not rely on the agency's own statement.
2. Check the agency's record with your state's licensing office and consumer authorities, and look for complaint history.
3. Ask for references from families who adopted from the same country in the last few years, and speak with them.
4. Be suspicious of anything that looks like buying a child: large payments to individuals in cash, pressure to decide at once, a birth mother who cannot be verified, documents that change. The Convention exists to stop precisely this, and if something feels wrong, stop and call the State Department.
5. Never pay a fee you do not understand, and get receipts.

The reason for all this care is moral. A child who was taken from a family and not truly relinquished is not an orphan, and bringing her home does her no good. Our own history includes episodes in which children were ill served by poor safeguards, and the entire structure of the treaty is a response.

After the plane lands

9. Is my child a U.S. citizen?

In most cases, yes, automatically, and quickly. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000, which took effect on February 27, 2001, provides that a child born outside the United States automatically becomes a citizen when three conditions are met: the child has a parent who is a U.S. citizen, the child is under eighteen, and the child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence. For an adopted child, the adoption must be full and final. Whether the child becomes a citizen on admission to the United States or only when the adoption is finalized here depends on how the adoption was completed.

Proof is a separate matter. The government does not automatically send every family a certificate, and many families apply for a Certificate of Citizenship, on Form N-600, and a passport, so the child has a document to show a school, an employer or a border officer. Ask your attorney or provider which route fits your child's case, and keep every document: the foreign adoption decree, the visa, the final U.S. adoption order and the child's original birth record and any translations. Some states also issue a new birth certificate, which has its own rules.

10. What does the family owe the child, and the sending country, after the adoption?

More than the forms suggest. Many countries require post-placement reports, visits by a social worker, for a period of years, and the family has promised to provide them. Failing to do so can lead a country to close its program. These reports are not red tape, they are the thing that earns other families a chance.

And there is the child himself or herself. A child adopted across cultures has lost a language, a place and a history, and gained a family. A wise family honors both. Keep the child's name and birth story where possible, learn the language and the culture alongside the child, and connect with other families who have adopted from the same country. Prepare the child for the questions that come with age, and prepare yourselves for hard feelings, which are normal and not a sign of failure. I take up the family's moral weight in the family came before the state, so why does the state act like a parent?, and the old objections that keep good families from even starting in eight myths that keep good families from adopting a child.

Why a conservative cares about this

The case for adoption is a case about the family, and it has deep roots. The conviction that every child deserves a mother and a father, or at least a permanent, loving home, is not a policy preference, it is a premise of civilization. Scripture gives particular attention to the fatherless, and the American tradition of private, voluntary, often faith-driven care for orphans goes back to the colonial era and further. A free society should make the road from an orphanage to a family as clear and as safe as it can, while insisting, rightly, on safeguards against trafficking and fraud. We do not ask for a government to match children with families. We ask it to guard the process, then step aside.

A parallel story is told in Baby Moses laws, from one Texas statute in 1999 to all fifty states, where a state law protected children closer to home. And the broader theme of protecting persecuted and vulnerable children abroad appears in The 1998 law that put religious persecution on America's foreign agenda.

The case in brief

1. Intercountry adoption is governed by the 1993 Hague Convention, in force for the United States since April 1, 2008, the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000, the child's home-country law and your state's law, so learn all four before you begin.
2. The State Department is the Central Authority; it accredits providers, publishes country information and issues the Hague documents, and USCIS handles the immigration filings for either the Hague or the orphan path.
3. Countries can close, as Russia did in 2012 effective January 2013, so choose programs with open eyes and ask what happens to fees and families in process.
4. Use an accredited provider, verify it on the State Department's site, get fees in writing, and walk away from anything that looks like buying a child.
5. Under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 an adopted child who meets the conditions becomes a citizen automatically, but keep every document and obtain proof.

What you can do: visit the State Department's intercountry adoption website, read the current page for the country you are considering, and check any agency's accreditation there before you speak to its staff.