Intercountry Adoptions
Adopting children from all over the world has steadily increased in the past decade. Approximately 20,000 inter-country adoptions are taking place per year. In addition, there are more than 200,000 foreign-adopted children already living in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is proud to play a key role in the inter-country adoption process.
Because there are two separate inter-country adoption processes, U.S. citizens who are interested in adopting a child from another country should first decide on a specific country from which to adopt. The Hague Adoption Convention entered into force in the United States on April 1, 2008, which created a new process for immigrating adoptive children who reside in other countries which are party to The Hague Adoption Convention. Similar to the existing Orphan process, which remains in effect for non-Hague countries, The Hague Adoption Convention process includes measures to determine the suitability of prospective adoptive parents, such as background and criminal checks, as well as a home study.
Once a prospective adoptive parent's eligibility and suitability to adopt has been established, both the Orphan process and The Hague Adoption Convention process have specific procedures to determine whether the child is eligible for immigration to the United States.
These types of Visa processing can be extremely difficult and confusing. If you would like the assistance of an experienced immigration lawyer, please contact us or call our office at 1-415-601-0210 to schedule a consultation today.
Legal Disclaimer
Content on this site is intended for generalized information reasons. It may become out of date at any time due to changes in the law. It is not intended to offer case-specific legal advice nor should it be deemed valid or accurate for that reason. If in fact you have an exact immigration related legal issue, we recommend you consult with an experienced immigration attorney or immigration lawyer. There exists disclaimers throughout our website stating that we are not an official U.S. Government website.
Contact San Francisco Immigration Lawyer Marko Mikin.
Copyright © 2009 Marko Mikin, Attorney at Law. All rights reserved.
