The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, recently issued a statement urging parents considering adopting from Vietnam to be very careful in choosing their “adoption service provider”. The U.S. Embassy has been increasingly denying orphan petitions and U.S. visa applications because of irregularities in adoption cases brought to it.
The statement did not say what any of these irregularities were. The wording “an adoption service provider” leads me to believe that the Embassy refers to adoptions arranged through attorneys or adoption facilitators rather than through social welfare agencies. I would always be more skeptical about this kind of adoption, although in some countries, such as Guatemala, it has been the norm more often than not.
An “orphan petition” is a petition to grant the child orphan status so that he or she qualifies for a visa to immigrate to the United States for the purposes of adoption. Its formal name is “Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative” and it is filed using Form I-600 from the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly known as the INS, Immigration and Naturalization Service). It need not necessarily mean that a child’s parents are both dead; it may mean that “the surviving parent or parents are unable to care for the child” and have relinquished the child irrevocably for adoption.
Procedures vary by country. In Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy requires DNA testing to ensure that the person relinquishing the baby is in fact the birthmother. In some countries, a father is not considered a parent unless his name is on the birth certificate; thus the birthmother is often referred to as the “sole surviving parent”. (This was the wording used on my daughter’s paperwork, even though the paperwork clearly stated the birthfather’s name and town.)
As always I strongly encourage parents to choose a well-established adoption agency (even if the particular country program is new to that agency). Beware of anyone who promises to find you a child. The best agencies are aware that adoption is about finding families for children, not children for parents. One indicator of this could be an agency that is involved in other social welfare projects in addition to adoption, such as furnishing orphanages.
Please see these related blogs:
The Call (story of a Guatemalan adoption with a facilitator)