[sak9645]

International adoption has two components -- adoption and immigration.

From the adoption perspective, if you are a citizen or resident of another country, China will not let you do a domestic adoption. You will have to adopt like any foreigner. That is, you will need to submit a dossier to the China Center for Adoption Affairs and be matched with a child.

I have heard that some families, especially in the past, have managed to do an adoption in their ancestral province, without going through the CCAA However, it is not common, and will cause you to be denied in the immigration process, if you want to bring the child to the U.S. The U.S. will honor China's prohibition of the practice, especially now that both countries have ratified the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption.

If you live in the U.S., either you or your spouse, or both of you, will need to be a U.S. citizen. You will need to have a U.S. homestudy, go through the USCIS I-600A process, assemble a dossier of documents that are notarized, certified, and authenticated, and then wait for a referral. You can go through the standard non-special-needs process, the standard special needs process, or the Waiting Child program.

From the standpoint of immigration, the only way to bring a child into the U.S. on an adoption visa is for at least one parent to be a U.S. citizen. If both parents are legal permanent residents or on some other kind of visa, they will not be able to get permission to bring a newly adopted child into the U.S. The only way to bring the child to the U.S. will be for at least one parent to give up his/her visa status by living abroad for two years with the child, and then applying for a regular visa to bring the child into the country.

Knowing that the U.S. requires at least one parent to be a U.S. citizen for an adopted child to receive an adoption visa, the Chinese government will NOT permit a family in the U.S. -- even one of Chinese descent -- to adopt a Chinese child, if the parents do not meet the requirements.

While it may seem surprising to you that the U.S. and China work so closely together on these issues, they do. The U.S. government respects the adoption law of any legitimate government, and will not issue a visa to a child if he/she was not legally adopted/given to a family under a decree of guardianship for adoption in the U.S. And the Chinese government takes international adoption very, very seriously and has had a Hague compliant system even before it formally ratified this important international treaty.

Sharon