[sarrerab]

I am hoping someone here can help me out a bit. We did an adoption over 11 years ago and we did not finalize in the state of Texas because 1) it wasn't required and 2) we didn't have the funds at the time and 3) about that time they passed that child foreign adoption act that granted citizenship to kids adopted by american citizens anyway and that's all we needed anyway. We adopted a set of twins from Haiti and they came in on an IR-4 because of emergency medical issues. They have permanent resident alien cards. We got a final Haitian birth certif after we entered the states with them that would have made the IR-4 and resident alien status moot had we had it up front. They have had SS#'s for forever. As they've gotten older, we realized that we need something a bit more tangible around here to use to prove citizenship for things like voting and getting their driver's license. We consulted an attorney who specializes in this sort of stuff and she looked at all our documents and she told us the easiest thing to do to get an easy proof of citizenship is file for a passport. Well, now we are going round and round with the state dept. I honestly just can't figure out what they want. I sent them the haitian birth certif with our names on them and their original haitian passports. Now they send me two different letters - one for each twin and we can't figure out what they want even after talking to them. We think they want translations of the Haitian birth certificate (which is what the SS office required, but insisted on doing it in=house). They also say they want the Haitian final adoption decree (translated of course). Then they send me a document for the other twin asking for none of this, but for the final adoption decree from Texas or a court order recognizing the adoption, neither of which we have or some document as follows "a statement from a competent authority (such as a court or state agency that oversees international adoptions) certifying that the child's state of residence does not allow re-adoption. A letter from an attorney citing the statute is also acceptable." Does anyone have any idea what the state dept really wants to prove their citizenship? We don't want to be forking over $$$ for translations or going to the hassle of re-adoption when not necessary. Attorney says re-adoption is not necessary - that they are citizens and everything I know and research confirms this. We just need documentation in english to prove it and it seemed passport was the easiest and cheapest route.