When international adoption became common in the U.S. after World War II, “proxy adoptions” let Americans adopt thousands of children in foreign courts–especially in Japan, Greece, and Korea–by designating a representative to act for the adoptive parents. Thus the children entered the U.S. as the legal children of their adoptive parents. While enabling adoptions which doubtless improved the living conditions of many children, this process also left out the standards involved in adopting a child in the U.S. , such as the background checks and social worker visits to prepare and follow up on the adoptive family.
By contrast, adoptions within the United States had become more standardized. Social work had gained recognition as a profession, and adopting parents had a homestudy done by a social worker, who ensured that background checks and references were looked at and that follow-up visits were made during a probationary period before the adoption was finalized.
Children entering the U.S. from overseas had no such protections. Professionals at the Child Welfare League and International Social Service complained that international adoption was little more than a “mail-order baby business”. An official of the International Social Service testified that one Texas woman appeared to be drunk and over 50 years of age when she arrived at the airport to pick up the baby who had been adopted for her in Greece in 1957.
While I personally do not doubt the sincere humanitarian reasons of those involved, it is also true that, as Child Welfare League Officials also asserted, that parents adopting internationally at the time were not given any guidance on the child’s culture, on raising transracially adopted children, or on difficulties often suffered by children who lived in orphanages.
The adoption of children from other countries was governed by a mishmash of refugee and displaced person Acts, beginning with a 1945 decree of by President Harry Truman that allowed eligible orphans into the U.S. This was intended to be a temporary procedure in response to a human emergency–the large number of children who had been orphaned by the Second World War. Not until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1961 was international adoption governed by a permanent law.
In response to pressure from child welfare organizations, groups such as Holt eventually implemented cautionary procedures and professionalized their adoption services.
Although most other countries now require American parents to travel to the child’s country and appear in court, a few countries still allow proxy adoption. Americans adopting from these countries, however, must still re-adopt their children in their home state.
Korea and India do not require adopting parents to travel, but children from those countries enter the U.S. with a different type of visa and are not adopted at all until the placement is finalized in the U.S. court after the post-placement visits and social work reports.
For example, my children were relinquished by their birthmother to the Korean agency and then by the Korean agency to the American adoption agency they partnered with. They were under the legal custody of this American agency when they entered my physical custody. This means that they retained their Korean names until the adoption was finalized in our state several months later. We put our family name on most documents, but continued to use their legal names when buying airplane tickets (since it was the name on their travel I.D.s), and, for clarity, on documents authorizing others to obtain emergency medical care and in our will.
Some of the facts on this website were obtained at the website of the Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon.